


sunflower (your love would be too much)

by fettuccine_alfreylo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parenting, Ben Solo is Not Nice, Ben Solo is a Mess, Child Neglect, Choking, Clubbing, Cunnilingus, Dark, Drug Addiction, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Face Slapping, Fights, Grinding, Kissing, Manipulation, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Obsessive Behavior, Online stalking, POV Multiple, Possessive Behavior, Single Dad Ben Solo, Speech Disorders, Suicidal Thoughts, Threats of Violence, brief mentions of maternal death, but it’s gonna be a Trip to get there, can't really consent when you're high, child endangerment, kindergarten teacher rey, minor character has an eating disorder, past discussion of an abortion that never happens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2020-11-01 22:14:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20524508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fettuccine_alfreylo/pseuds/fettuccine_alfreylo
Summary: Ben Solo is many things.Editor-in-Chief. (Somewhat) Functioning drug addict. Unrepentant Asshole. Widower.Father....He fills some of these roles better than others.Until his son's Kindergarten teacher comes along and turns his life upside down.





	1. Chapter 1

***

Blood. 

Lots of it. 

The stench of childbirth, a smell that he’ll never be able to forget. Piss, shit, sweat, who knows what else. 

Bazine’s face. Pale, drenched in perspiration, her delicate fox-like features contorted in pain as the life fades from her hazel eyes. 

_ I did this to you. You’re dying because of me. Because I couldn’t be fucked to wear a condom that night. You slapped me and screamed in my face when I dared to mention the option of an abortion, but aborting the child wouldn’t have led us here, would it? _

_ Then again, our relationship would have been fucked either way. We’re too much alike. Too stubborn, too cruel. We weren’t made to last, even though I love you so fucking much. Heartbreak would’ve happened sooner or later - and now it’s here. _

These thoughts consume him, though they do nothing to block out the sound of a long, drawn out beep from the heart monitor. 

The sound of an infant’s frightened wail as it enters a new world with no mother. 

Just a fucked up asshole of a father who’s too much of a coward to even show it an ounce of affection. 

***

Ben startles awake from the dream in the dark. 

It’s a dream he’s often had these past five years. 

Sometimes the dream follows exactly what happened: Bazine dies in childbirth, leaving him overwhelmed and out of his depth with a newborn. 

Sometimes it’s even worse: Both Bazine and the baby die, and Ben decides to kill himself, too. 

Only one time has the dream not turned into a nightmare. It’s the memory of that dream in particular, more than any of the others, that haunts him: 

Him. Bazine. Happily married. Raising their baby in a stable, healthy and loving home. A home that’s full of peace, laughter and hugs rather than shouting matches, physical fights that end in hate sex, or broken objects hurled across the room in a blind rage. 

It haunts him because he knows beyond a doubt that would have never happened, even if Bazine survived. That level of picturesque is unattainable. Now more than ever. 

A rustle of blankets tells Ben that he isn’t alone in his bed. He suppresses a sigh, breathing out through his nose as he turns over onto his side.

Bazine’s very last words to him had been the name she wanted their son to have. 

But she had been cut short. Ky— 

Then nothing. He never found out whether she meant to say something more than that. But he couldn’t bring himself to go against Bazine’s last request. She’d just given birth to their child. Their baby. He just — he just couldn’t do it. Their relationship may have been doomed from the start, but he couldn’t do that to her.

So Ky had stuck, and after a spelling mix-up thanks to some incompetent nurse, an ‘e’ had been added to the end. 

Kye. 

His son. 

Two bright hazel eyes, so much like Bazine’s, blink up at him through the scant light of the room as the silence stretches between them. He’s always watching, always waiting for Ben to speak first. Wise and perceptive beyond his tender age. He’s always been this way, even as a baby. Quiet, withdrawn, fully aware of the fucked up parents he was born to. 

“Bad dream?” Ben asks. 

A nod and a sniffle in response. He’s been crying.

“Did you wet your bed again?”

A vehement shake of his head no, his shaggy dark hair flopping over his eyes. 

“Good.” 

Ben reaches out, brushing the hair off Kye’s face. The boy leans into his touch, moving closer to cuddle against him. Something seizes painfully in Ben’s chest. 

“No.”

Kye listens and obeys, but his eyes - they’re filling with tears again. _ Shit_. Turning him away when he’s like this would only do more harm than good. As gently as he’s capable, Ben explains: 

“You can sleep here tonight but that’s it. You’re a child now. Not a baby. And children sleep in their own beds even when they have nightmares. Do you understand?” 

Kye nods again, pulling the covers up and over his chin. Another pitiful sniffle, but he closes his eyes this time. 

Ben waits for the quiet snuffling that lets him know his son is asleep. Then, with practiced ease, he locates the pill bottle tucked into the topmost drawer of the bedside table. 

He swallows two pills, then waits for a hopefully dreamless sleep to overtake him. 

***

He knocks out so well, he completely forgets about the parent-teacher conference the next day. 

He’s halfway to work, weaving in and out of New York City traffic, when Mitaka’s name flashes up on the Bluetooth screen of his car. His assistant never calls him when he’s driving unless it’s something important, so he grudgingly accepts the call, blinking furiously to stay awake. He’s still so fucking drowsy and in his rush to leave this morning, he hadn’t been able to take anything to get his brain going at the speed he likes. 

“What?”

“Mr. Solo, I just received a call from your son’s teacher, Miss Niima.”

“And? What does she want?” 

“She wants to know your estimated time of arrival for the meeting today, Sir. It was supposed to start at 7am just before school, but she says Mr. Trooper dropped your son off today, not you.”

Ben checks the time on the dashboard. It’s 8:03. _ Fuck. _ He’s known about this parent-teacher conference for awhile. Has been dreading it, too, ever since Mitaka let him know that Kye’s Kindergarten teacher _ \- _Miss Niima - wanted to have a ‘chat’ with him. Not Kye’s nanny Finn Trooper, who’s more of a father figure to Kye than Ben has ever been. No, she’d specifically asked for ‘Kye’s father’ - and so he agreed to meet with her to discuss what he’s almost certain is something about his son’s lack of speech. It was only a matter of time. A normal five-year-old can’t shut the fuck up even if they try. Kye can’t even manage to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. 

It’s a sore subject for Ben. He knows it's his fault. Kids need love and attention and Kye doesn't get that from him. From Finn, absolutely. From Leia? Yes. From Han? Debatable, but he has the right idea. Funny how the shittiest parents can turn out to be surprisingly okay grandparents. Sometimes Ben wonders what type of grandparent he'd be. But he doesn't intend to stick around that long. Once Kye overcomes this speech thing, once he's a grown man and has a life of his own...Ben doesn't know what he'll do. Buy an island somewhere, probably. Drink until he's numb. Drown himself in the crystal clear ocean. 

Until then, though...he has to financially provide for his son. It's the only thing he knows how to do, and he does it well. But it seems no amount of money can easily solve Kye’s lack of speech. Ben has tried everything. Finding a full-time nanny to keep the boy company. Filling his room with books and toys and games that supposedly promote language skills. Sending Kye to the best speech and language pathologist in the city. Sending him to a child psychologist, too. Nothing has worked so far. He feels like a failure because of it, and relaying all of this to a fucking Kindergarten teacher is only going to rub salt in the wound. That conversation can wait just a bit longer. 

“Ask her if she can reschedule for later today. 4 or 5.”

“I will, Sir,” Mitaka says, as dutifully as ever. 

“And...tell her I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind about work.”

It’s the truth. As Editor-in-Chief of _ First Order_, one of the top men’s magazines in the U.S., he’s never _ not _ busy. There’s a reason he has to medicate himself and often. No normal human being works oftentimes 20+ hour workdays. No normal human being stays up until 3am approving fashion spreads for next month’s issue, only to wake up a handful of hours later and do it all over again. He’s the epitome of a workaholic. There’s no use denying it. He just is. He throws himself into his work with reckless abandon because the alternative - actually being fucking _ present _in his son’s life - is too much for him. Emotionally, mentally, physically, everything. He doesn’t know how to do it. So he simply doesn’t. 

Maybe Kye will resent him for this lack of involvement as he grows older, just as Ben resents his own parents - but at least it will build character. Ben learned early on how to live independently, how to get ahead based on his own merits, how to rely on no one except himself.

He hopes, _prays_ that Kye will be able to say the same thing, someday. 

*** 

Ben manages to get to Coruscant Academy at a quarter past 4 that day. He’s not sure when the school lets out, exactly - Finn would know - but as he walks the empty halls, breathing in the smell of crayons and paint, it’s pretty obvious that no one else is here. 

Thanks to the map near the front office, he finds his way around the maze of hallways easily enough. The kindergartners have their own wing; a long stretch of hallway that’s labeled “Kinderbugs”, sporting green colored walls with hundreds of painted butterflies, caterpillars and ladybugs dotting the surface. The clashing colors give him a headache, and the door to Miss Niima’s classroom at the very end of the hall isn’t much better. It’s covered with yellow construction paper sunflowers, pictures of children’s faces in the middle of each one. Ben finds Kye’s near the bottom. To his surprise, Kye is sporting a huge, infectious grin on his face. He’s never seen Kye smile that big. It’s like he couldn’t help but smile at whoever took the picture. 

She’s one of _ those _teachers, then. The one that kids fall in love with. No wonder Finn says that Kye cries whenever he has to leave school each day.

“Jesus Christ,” Ben mutters, rapping on the door. Time to get this over with. 

The door flings open and with it, Ben swears that his breath leaves his body. 

She’s young. Younger than the middle aged spinster he was picturing in his head. She has on a gaudy, oversized rainbow sweater tucked into a frankly ridiculous pair of acid wash blue jeans painted with gold stars. Her hair is pulled up into some bizarre three-bun style, sunflower earrings adorning her ears and on her feet, she’s wearing _ converse_. Converse! But there’s no denying that she’s strikingly beautiful underneath all the unattractive eccentricity. 

She’s just his type, in fact. A small, hazel eyed brunette. _ Like Bazine. _Except where Bazine was mercurial and oftentimes unfriendly, Miss Niima looks warm and welcoming, her smile making his own cheeks hurt just looking at it. 

“Hi! You must be Mr. Solo. Come on in, Kye and I were just playing dinosaurs while we waited—”

Ben frowns. “He’s still here? His nanny - he should’ve taken him home by now.”

“Finn? Oh, yeah, we’re close friends, believe it or not. He stopped by earlier when school ended but I told him to go on home, since you’d be coming here anyway. I hope that’s okay.”

It isn’t okay. At all. It’s presumptive. He feels even more out of the loop now. Stupid. A shit excuse for a parent for not keeping track of his child’s whereabouts. _ Which he is_. He is undoubtedly shitty. He doesn’t like being reminded of it, though. 

But the way she’s scrunching up her nose in an adorably apologetic expression...it catches him off guard, and he can only nod as he follows her into the room. It’s just as loud and chaotic as her door decorations. Child-sized brightly colored tables and chairs everywhere. A banner reading “Hooray for Kindergarten!” lining the windows, outside of which he can see a playground. Oversized books on a reading stand, a mound of pillows and bean bag chairs near the front whiteboard, and messily colored drawings littering the walls and her small desk. It’s a nightmare. Like a Sesame Street muppet vomited and shat rainbows everywhere. 

In the center of it all, cross legged and hugging an armful of stuffed dinosaurs to his chest, sits Kye. His bright smile fades when he sees Ben approach and he lets go of the dinosaurs, pushing them behind his back. Like he’s ashamed to have been seen playing with them. Ben doesn’t know why that realization stings so bad, but it does. 

The stinging feeling continues when Miss Niima crouches down to Kye’s level and Kye leans into her, sighing softly. Like she’s his lifeline, his safety net, his protector against the monster that Ben feels like right now. 

“It’s okay, honey. You aren’t in trouble. Your dad is here because I just wanted to talk to him about a few things, okay?”

Ben watches, transfixed, as her hands gesticulate in practiced motions while she talks to his son. Kye focuses on her hands intently, like he’s studying the different motions and committing them to memory. 

“What’s happening? What are you doing with him?” Ben asks, feeling like he’s encroaching on a private moment between them which is just absurd. It’s _ his _son. 

“_Kye _ and I,” She emphasizes Kye’s name, making sure to include him in the conversation, continuing to move her hands as she looks back and forth between him and Ben, “Are using sign language to speak to each other.” This time she looks directly at Kye. “You’ve learned a lot of words since we’ve started talking to each other this way, haven’t you?” 

Kye nods enthusiastically and raises his fist, making a bobbing motion. Miss Niima mimics him, smiling broadly before she continues gesturing, “Yes. You’re a smart boy. Do you want to show your father some signs that you’ve learned?” 

Kye’s smile fades again as he looks in Ben’s direction. He bows his head and then shakes his head no. Miss Niima presses her head against his, speaking in a low tone. “No? I think he’d be really impressed, Kye. You can show him how to spell your name! Wouldn’t you like that? Or - or you could spell out ‘Dad’, couldn’t you? Hm?” 

“I don’t want him to do any of that. And I don’t want him learning signs, period. I enrolled him in this school to get a top-of-the-line education to get him into a top-of-the-line college someday. None of this special shi - _ stuff,” _He amends, more for the teacher’s sake than Kye’s. Kye has heard him say every curse word under the sun. If he could speak, he could probably say them all. 

Miss Niima stands up again, her sunny smile from before no longer there. Kye looks between the pair of them with rapt attention, sticking his thumb into his mouth. 

“Put your thumb away. We’ve talked about that,” Ben snaps. 

Kye immediately obeys, balling his small hands into his lap. Ms. Niima frowns at this, looking increasingly uncomfortable. _ Good_. 

“Mr. Solo, can I speak to you privately for a moment, please?” 

“Anything you need to say to me can be said in front of Kye, too. Without using signs. He has two functioning ears and can hear us fine. So let’s talk.” 

She bites the inside of her cheek, though her tone remains light and friendly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr. Solo.” 

“I do.” 

She stares back at him for a second, her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flaring. Ben feels oddly satisfied. Beneath her chipper smiles and stupid sunflower earrings, there’s a sleeping dragon. And he’s just woken it up. He’d much rather see _ this _side of her, the ugly side of her. Because ugly he can deal with. Rude and angry suit him just fine. They’re his version of normal. None of this ridiculous ‘sunshine and rainbows’ bullshit. 

Schooling her expression into a pleasant one yet again, he watches as she kneels back down beside Kye, signing as she speaks softly. But he can hear her. 

“Kye, why don’t you go over to the reading center and put on headphones? You can listen to one of your favorite books. It’s in the cassette player right now. Any guesses what it is?”

Kye does another sign and Miss Niima answers with the fist bobbing motion again. “Yes, _Corduroy_! Just press the button you usually do and it’ll start playing! I’ll only be with your father for a moment okay? We’ll be finished before you’re even done.” 

Without any more encouragement, Kye sprints over to the reading nook and plops down on a bean bag chair, pulling a battered red book and an ancient cassette player towards him. He shoves on a pair of oversized headphones then leans back in the chair, his eyes glazing over as he follows along to the audiobook. 

Ben scowls, turning to face Miss Niima again. She’s openly scowling right back at him. Something possesses him to poke at her a bit more. It’s what she deserves for undermining his authority with his own damn son. Who the hell does she think she is, anyway? 

“I’m surprised this school doesn’t provide you with higher quality technology, Miss Niima. I could make sure each student in your class has the latest iPad model stocked with all sorts of audiobooks. All you need to do is ask.”

Her scowl deepens. “This school is very well-resourced, thank you.”

“I know it is. I’ve donated handsomely so that every classroom is well up-to-date. So why isn’t yours?” 

She visibly bristles at this not-so-subtle display of his power and money. “I prefer cassette tapes and hard copies of books. That’s what I grew up with. That’s how I learned to read.”

“Don’t you think some children would prefer to live in the 21st century?”

She doesn’t reply to that, just stares at him in open disdain. “I’m glad you’ve been able to show up, Mr. Solo, no matter how many hours late you are.”

“We rescheduled.”

“_I _ didn’t reschedule. You did. You left me with no choice but to wait,” She checks her wristwatch, “Over _ nine hours _ later than the prior agreed upon time.”

“I have a very busy work life, Miss Niima. I can’t exactly drop everything and come whenever his _ Kindergarten _teacher needs me. These sort of tasks can be delegated to his nanny.”

She wraps her arms around herself, looking hurt, but she still bites back, “Well, if this sort of thing is beneath you, Mr. Solo, excuse me for taking up your valuable time. I’ll talk to Finn about this tomorrow.”

“I’m already here, aren’t I? You might as well just tell me.”

She gnaws on her lower lip for a moment, considering, then lets out a breath, like she’s decided to just get out with it. “You’re well aware that Kye is experiencing some speech delays.”

“Yes. That’s why I’ve enrolled him in this school. The child psychologist recommended it. Said he’d do well with other children in a smaller class size. Is that not the case?”

“No, no, that’s...that’s exactly what he gets here, yes. And he’s already making so much progress already, it’s incredible. He’s incredible.” She smiles at that, her posture relaxing just a bit. “But, Mr. Solo...our school has an option to give him one-on-one lessons with a speech therapist, right here in the classroom. Rose Tico - she’s fluent in ASL, much more fluent than me, and I think she could bring him up to speed in no time at all—”

“No. _ No. _ I told you before, he doesn’t need that. He needs to learn to _ speak. _ Like normal. I want to hear his _ voice. _Can your speech therapist manage that? If not, I don’t see the point. I’ve already taken him to very qualified specialists outside of the school and nothing has worked.”

“But that’s why this _ could _work, Mr. Solo! He loves it here. He feels at home. I think he’d be a lot more receptive to speech lessons if he could have them right here in the classroom where he feels safe and knows me, knows his classmates.”

This is exactly what he’d dreaded when Kye started school. He had a feeling that some teacher, some _nobody _ who’d only known Kye for a limited period of time, would start meddling, start making all sorts of _ recommendations _ like goddamn ASL while never getting to the crux of the issue. Ben _ knows _ Kye can speak. He knows it deep down. And all of this coddling...it’s only going to serve as a crutch. At this rate Kye is never going to adapt and Ben can’t let that happen. He _ won’t. _

“He’s fine how he is. I don’t want him to be exposed to - to shit like this. Just give him a _ normal _education like the rest of your students and he’ll catch up.”

“You can’t know that!” 

“I do. I know it’ll happen because I’ll make it happen.”

She uncrosses her arms, color blooming in her cheeks. “You can’t just - just make your son fit into a perfect little box! He’s _ five _ and you’re in denial about how much help he really needs. And you’re just too...too _ ignorant _ and _ selfish _ to consider that maybe he needs a different approach! You’re not the first parent to give me trouble, Mr. Solo, and you won’t be the last either. But I’ll be _ damned_,” She breaks off, choking on her words, then gets right up in his face, _ poking _ him in the chest. “I’ll be _ damned _ if I have to see a bright young boy like Kye held back because his father is too much of an _ idiot _to see some sense!” 

For once, Ben is speechless. He can’t think of what to say. Even during the foulest fights with Bazine, he always had cutting words to throw back at her. He always stood his ground, never backed down. 

But Miss Niima...he actually feels _ embarrassed. _ Chastised. Ashamed of himself. _ Humiliated_. He’s been put in his place by a _ Kindergarten teacher_, of all people, and that makes him furious. Furious at her, furious at himself, even furious at Kye for being the source of this argument.

Without another word to Miss Niima, he walks over to Kye and yanks his headphones off. Despite the boy’s protests, how he starts flailing his arms and kicking his legs, Ben picks him up. 

“We’re leaving, Kye.”

Kye starts to cry in earnest but he doesn’t pay him any mind, or Miss Niima telling him they aren’t finished with their discussion yet. He doesn’t give a damn. If he doesn’t leave now, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. 

All he knows is that this is definitely not the last time this Human Headache of a teacher will give him shit about how he raises his kid - and the school year is just barely into September. 

Motherfucking shit. 

He is way, way too sober for this bullshit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I haven't been able to get this idea out of my head. This is a very, very different Ben Solo than I'm used to writing, and this is just a way darker fic in general than I'm used to writing, too. Addiction is a touchy subject for me because my sibling is a recovering drug addict (5 years clean and I'm SO proud of them). That said, this is my way of working through some issues related to their addiction and how it affected me and the rest of my family.
> 
> ...But I'm the ultimate sucker for an HEA, so of course this will still have one lol.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this first chapter. Let me know what you think?
> 
> Thank you to my trusty beta and wonderful friend [Michelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkKnightDarkSide/pseuds/DarkKnightDarkSide). I cannot recommend her writing highly enough. It is just *chefs kiss* Go and give it a read!


	2. Chapter 2

_ _

_***_

_ “I can’t feel anything.” _

_ “You will. You just have to be patient.” _

_ “I’m not patient.” _

_ “Don’t I know it,” Bazine grumbles, taking his hand and pressing it against the side of her belly. _

_ She’s five months pregnant but with her waifish frame, she seems a lot more than that. Ben had thought that she’d be upset about the changes her body is going through, but she seems...happy. Happier, rather. To everyone's surprise and especially his own, pregnancy suits her. Her face is more rounded, color in her cheeks, her bones not so visible. And she loves the baby. Talks to it daily, rubs her stomach over and over like it’s a genie lamp. _

_ Ben isn’t comfortable seeing her do this. At all. Guilt roils away in his stomach still. They aren’t equipped to have a baby. Financially, yes. The child will have every material possession it could possibly want. But Bazine is only half a year out of fucking rehab for an eating disorder, for God’s sake, and Ben...he’s, well… _

_ He runs his middle finger under his nose, grateful that Bazine is preoccupied with getting the baby to kick again. She hates when he’s like this. Hates when he’s high. Normally she won’t shut up about how much she hates it. She fights him, obsessed with finding and destroying every pill, every eight ball, every ounce of liquor he’s hidden away in the great expanse of their penthouse apartment. Now, though… _

_ “Do you feel him?” _

_ “Huh?” he asks, his feverishly racing thoughts coming to a temporary halt. _

_ Determined, she presses his hand harder against her stomach, her face screwed up in determination. “Right...there. He’s kicking. You should feel a little flutter.” _

_ He doesn’t feel shit. What he does feel is antsy. He needs to take another hit soon and get back to work, back to the spring editorial spread he’s been working on for fucking ages. With Snoke’s impending retirement and announcement of his successor, Ben is prepared to give up everything, even his fucking soul, if it means he can become Editor-in-Chief. If it means he can beat Armitage Hux. If it means he can be more than Creative Director. Ben knows he can do it. He just needs to focus. To keep work on his mind until what he wants is his. He’ll have all the time in the world for this familial shit once he gets promoted. _

_ So he keeps telling himself, anyway. _

_ Leaning down, Ben presses a kiss to the top of Bazine’s head. _

_ “Yes. I feel him. I feel him kicking,” he lies. _

***

The drive home to the apartment is quiet, as it always is. 

Kye doesn’t normally ride in Ben’s car. He doesn’t have any sort of kid music for him to listen to, so he makes do with classical. At every traffic light, every slow down, he watches in his rearview mirror as Kye traces raindrops down the window, keeping time to the tempo of a Chopin étude. 

Bazine would know which one. She’d always been musical. Always singing, always playing any number of instruments with a natural born skill. But her passion was violin. She would’ve had a long and illustrious career of it, too, if she hadn’t chosen modeling over her spot in the New York Philharmonic. That’s where he’d first met her. One solo in Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” was all it took for him to be spellbound, desperate to catch another glimpse of the violinist who’d made him _ feel _something for the first time in years. 

He’d stuck around and asked for her after the concert, not taking no for an answer when other members of the ensemble told him to leave. Eventually he found her, kissed her until she was begging him for more, and took her home to his bed. 

And yet he wishes he could go back to that night they met and reverse it. She’d been magnificent. Young, bright eyed, fire in her blood, not yet exposed to the ugly underbelly of the fashion world. By introducing her to it, he’d destroyed her. 

Miss Niima reminds him so much of that Bazine. The spirited, wild-hearted Bazine with stars in her eyes. That’s what makes the schoolteacher so goddamn dangerous. As his fury fades, he’s left with a curiosity about her instead. 

_ Who are you? _

_ What is it about you that makes people love you so much_? 

_ What makes you so electric? _

He doesn’t stop thinking about her for the rest of the evening. 

Or later that night, before his nightcap of benzos and booze, when he fists his cock to the image of her tied down, splayed across his bed, wearing nothing but those little sunflower earrings.

...Or the next morning, when he touches himself to the thought of her yet again. 

...Or the day after that.

***

“I met your friend the other day.” 

Finn is in the middle of making a sandwich for Kye so he doesn’t immediately respond, but when he does, it’s with a poor attempt at nonchalance. 

“Oh yeah? Who?” 

Ben meets his gaze across the large kitchen and raises an eyebrow. Finn swallows, growing visibly uncomfortable as the seconds tick by. Yes, he knows. He knows who Ben is talking about. That guilty look says it all. 

“Kye’s teacher. Miss Niima.” 

“Oh - oh yeah. Rey.”

_ Rey_. Fitting, that. Miss Sunshine and Rainbows must feel oddly smug, having a name that so perfectly matches her bubbly personality. 

“How long have you known her?” Ben asks, and he’s pleased to hear how casual the question sounds to his own ears. He’s fishing for information, yes, but he’s not being obvious about it. 

“We’ve been good friends for a few years now. We knew each other in high school but we reconnected once we both moved to the city.” Finn breaks eye contact, cutting the sandwich into triangles in the way that Kye probably likes. 

“You didn’t think it was important to mention your relationship with her before now?”

Finn stills at that, “Well, it - it never really came up, Mr. Solo. I only realized myself when the school sent home that Open House bulletin. I was so excited to see Kye in her class. She’s great at her job. He’s in really, really capable hands.” 

Ben doesn’t know the Open House bulletin that Finn is referring to, but now he needs to see it. Maybe it’ll have more information about her on it. Her email. Her school phone. Maybe even a cellphone. He tucks that bit of information away for later, taking a sip of his coffee. 

“Did she tell you we had a bit of an argument?”

Finn lovingly removes the crust off of each sandwich triangle, popping the scraps into his mouth and chewing slowly. Like he's holding off on answering, which tells Ben all he needs to know about whether or not Finn has talked to Miss Niima - _ Rey _ \- since the little spat. 

Before he’s able to pry anymore, Kye comes barreling into the kitchen, his socks sliding against the marble floor as he wraps his arms around Finn’s legs in a hug. 

“Hey, little dude! Your sandwich is ready. PB&J, just how you like it. Are you sure this is what you want for dinner?” 

Kye nods solemnly, taking one triangle off the proffered plate that Finn is holding. He then pushes the plate back into Finn’s arms, gesturing for him to take the other half. 

“Aw, thank you buddy, but you need to finish both halves. We need to make sure you’re eating enough, little guy. How about I whip up some guacamole and carrots too before I leave for the night? Maybe some soup?”

Kye shakes his head no, pouting a little, and Finn laughs, ruffling his dark hair. “Come on, Kye. Work with me a little. Don’t you want to grow up big and strong like your dad?” 

Kye meets Ben’s eyes then, his small mouth downturned in a frown. He’s always so animated, so full of character since he can’t express himself in a normal way, that Ben has an uncanny ability for picking up what he’s thinking. And his atypically shuttered expression right now says it all. 

_ No, I don’t want to grow up and be anything like my dad. Because my dad is scary. _

Why does that bother him so much, that his own flesh and blood is afraid of him? 

Why does it hurt, when Ben knows it won’t do Kye any favors to grow close to a parent who is as unstable and volatile as he is?

Unwilling to examine it any further, Ben leaves the kitchen and secludes himself in his office upstairs for the rest of the night to work, all thoughts of his son and Miss Niima banished from his mind. 

***

It’s New York Fashion Week, arguably the busiest time of the year in the fashion industry. 

Men’s Fashion Week was held earlier in the summer but as figurehead of _ First Order_, he’s still invited and expected to attend the events that feature menswear this week. Making appearances at shows and afterparties to rub elbows with other publishers means less time spent at the office doing grunt work on next month’s issue, which translates to more time he’ll have to spend at home making up for it. 

...More time that he’ll have to spend in the same living space as Kye, but never interacting with him. 

That is, without a doubt, the worst part about working from home. 

Catching glimpses of his son as he plays legos with Finn in the living room. Having rushed, forced dinners of delivered food, the scrape of forks and knives on plates the only sounds they make together. Hearing Kye cry through the walls at night, once Finn goes home and the boy realizes he’s by himself again, without anyone for company in a massive apartment fifty floors up from the outside world. 

Kye is young but he already knows that he can’t rely on his sorry excuse of a father for anything. For emotional support. To play with him. To make him home cooked meals or tuck him into bed. 

Ben tried to parent when Kye was a baby, tried as much as he could despite how fucked up he was, but only managed for a short amount of time before he gave up. Leia had stepped in when he was floundering, but once things grew even more tense, once she started all that talk about _ custody _ and Kye _ moving in _to live with her, Ben put a stop to it and found an actual nanny. He couldn’t care for his son, not in the way that he deserved, so the very least he could do was find someone else who could.

Maybe it was selfish to not let Kye go. The thought of him anywhere else, though - with an adopted family, with Han and Leia, or in the foster care system - it terrified Ben back then as a new and struggling father, and it still terrifies him now. So he does what he can to make sure that never happens, while still maintaining a distance between him and his son. It’s their own, screwed up version of normal. Sometimes, Ben wishes he knew how to change it. 

Most of the time, though, Ben is convinced this is for the best. He wouldn’t have the job he has now, the security he has now, if he’d chosen to focus on his son rather than his work. 

Besides, he doesn’t think that Kye has any memories of Ben taking care of him. Kye doesn’t miss him. Kye’s entire world revolves around Finn, revolves around Han and Leia. They’re the people he knows that love him, that can care for him, that can give him kisses and hugs when he’s upset. 

Not Ben. 

And that’s just fine with him. 

...Most of the time. 

It’s always, always ‘most of the time’. 

Not ‘all of the time’. And that discrepancy, that’s what keeps Ben up at night when Kye cries in the next room. 

That’s what makes it so hard to sleep, what makes it necessary to drug himself so he finally can. 

Ben rubs at his temples, the glare of the bright runway lights serving as a cruel reminder that he’s running on fumes at this point. Not even thirty minutes into the _ Tom Ford _show and he already wants to leave from here and sleep for ten years, but he knows he’ll never be able to. He’s lucky if he gets a solid three hours each night. 

“You look like shit,” Edward Snoke murmurs from beside him, though the man keeps his eye trained on the models marching down the runway. From an outsider perspective it would look as though he’d just made a remark about the clothing, not the physical appearance of the current Editor-in-Chief for the fashion magazine he used to run. _ Used _ to, but he’s like a fucking cockroach. So widely respected and known in the fashion industry that Ben can never get rid of him completely. Now a chairman of _ Empire Publications_, the mass media company that owns _ First Order_, Snoke will always be a looming presence in Ben’s life. That is, until the withered old shit finally kicks the bucket. That day cannot come soon enough. 

“Lots to do, as I’m sure you know from experience,” he mutters back. 

Snoke clicks his tongue at that. “Yes, but I never looked so disheveled while doing so. Fix your pocket square, for God’s sake. There are cameras everywhere.” 

Ben glances down at his suit. His pocket square is _ barely _off center but he adjusts it anyway, stifling the curse he so badly wants to aim at Snoke. 

“How’s the brat? Is he the reason for those bags under your eyes or are old habits creeping up on you again?” Snoke asks, and Ben’s hackles immediately raise. This is yet another reason why he always tries to keep Kye at arm’s length.

Snoke has made it no secret over the years that he thinks Ben’s decision to keep his child was a mistake. He views Ben’s parenthood as a weakness, something that’s holding him back from reaching his full potential. 

And yet the man has always harbored a fascination for Kye as well. He sends him birthday cards and Christmas presents, and he’s even offered to fund Kye’s tuition if Ben sends him to a ridiculously expensive private school upstate. There’s no way in hell that's happening, no matter how many times Snoke brings it up, but it still unsettles Ben to no end. 

“No, he’s fine. And I’m fine, too.” That second part is definitely a lie, it always is, but he’ll gladly repeat it one thousand times over if it means he can convince himself it’s true and by extension, Snoke as well. 

“You know I’m always here to help, Solo. Whatever it is you need. Whether it’s taking the boy off your hands, or moving you to the very top of the waitlist for that rehab facility in East Hampton, or—”

The tap on his shoulder from Mitaka couldn’t have come at a better time. Ben makes a mental note to request a significant pay raise for him. God knows the man deserves it. 

“So sorry for the interruption, Sir. Mr. Trooper just called me. Said it’s urgent. Would you be able to call him back or should I tell him you’ll respond at a later time?” Mitaka murmurs in his ear. 

Finn only calls him occasionally to keep him updated about things to do with Kye and when he does, it’s never anything serious. Kye running a fever. Kye falling down and scraping his knees at the park. Kye needing a flu shot before starting school. Things like that. In all the years he’s been Kye’s nanny, Finn has never once let anything serious happen to him. 

But he’s also never called Ben’s assistant with an urgent message, either. 

“No, that’s fine. I’ll call him back.” Ben turns back to Snoke, finding the man’s sunken, watery eyes on him. “Excuse me,” he states, rising from his seat. He can feel everyone else staring, too; it’s bad etiquette to leave during the middle of a show, but he can’t be fucked. 

“I trust everything is alright?” Snoke asks, and Ben offers only a tight smile in reply.

Once he’s out of the show, out of Spring Studios and onto the busy streets of Tribeca, he immediately calls Finn, swallowing back the panic he feels as the phone rings out. 

But finally, Finn answers. 

“Mr. Solo—”

“Answer your fucking phone on the first ring,” he spits, well aware he’s being a hypocrite. He hadn’t even known that Finn had called until Mitaka said something. Still, he’s angry. “I pay you too damn much to let the phone ring out, Trooper.”

“Sorry sir, sorry. It won’t happen again. It’s just— I’m kind of preoccupied—”

“Where’s Kye?” Ben asks, and his voice sounds distant to his own ears. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s fine, he’s right in the other room.” Finn sounds hushed, like he’s trying not to speak too loud, and Ben’s temper increases tenfold. 

“Then what the fuck are you calling me for? My assistant said it was urgent.”

“It is urgent, sir, it’s...” Finn sighs, then tries again, “It’s - it’s the ACS, Sir. They just stopped by. Said they wanted to speak to you. They got an anonymous report—”

“The ACS?”

“The Administration for Children’s Services. The—” Finn breaks off, like he’s scared to continue. “The city’s child welfare agency.” 

***

Ben can’t remember hanging up the phone on Finn. He can’t even remember the ride over to Coruscant Academy. He’d been too blinded by rage to think straight, and now that he’s here, where he knows _ she _is, it’s even worse. 

How fucking dare she? 

How dare she make a fucking _ report _about him? 

How could she do something like that, based on one single interaction, one brief period of time where she’d seen him interact with Kye? What does she think he does to his son? Hurt him? Beat him? Abuse him? 

Just thinking about it makes him violently sick to his stomach, so much that he actually does throw up in one of the school bathrooms before he can make it to the Kindergarten wing. It’s almost comical, how small the toilets in the bathroom are compared to him, so he has to vomit into one of the sinks instead. 

When he looks at himself in the mirror afterward, he visibly flinches. 

Maybe Snoke did have a point. He does look like shit. Hair a mess from how much he’s run his hands through it, dark circles under his eyes, the tiny pinpricks of his pupils making his eyes so dark he looks possessed. Wild. Feral. 

He is. 

No one fucks with him this way. 

_ No one_. 

Least of all a _ Kindergarten teacher. _

He storms out of the bathroom, easily finding his way to her room again. The hallway is deserted once more, all of the children having gone home for the day, but the light under her door lets him know she’s still here. Because of course she is. Her job isn’t over when the school day ends, oh no. She’s so much of a goody-two-shoes that she probably stays here until dark, working on stupid lesson plans to make sure that every precious child in her class is happy. And if they aren’t, she fucking files reports on their parents. Like she did to him. 

He bangs on the door until she answers. 

Once she gets a look at who is on the other side of the door, at who has come to pay her a little visit, she tries to shut the damn door in his face.

But he’s faster, stronger. He pushes his shoulder against the door with brute force until she yelps, leaping away so that he can charge inside. He slams the door behind him and locks it, his eyes never once straying from her. 

She’s backed into the corner by her desk and she looks scared. Frightened. Like a little doe with her wide eyes and freckles. _ Fuck her. _

“Mr. Solo, this is unprofessional, I need you to leave immediately—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

As he advances on her she darts over to her purse on the desk and pulls something out, brandishing it at him. 

Pepper spray. 

“If you come any closer to me I’m going to use it,” she threatens, her voice shaking. 

He takes another step closer. “I’d like to see you try.”

Her lip quivers. “I will. I swear I will. And I’ll call the police after.”

“I’d deal with you before they even got here.”

She starts to actually cry. “What is_ wrong _with you? Why are you doing this?”

“Why did _ you _ do it?”

“Do _ what_?” she wails. 

“You know _ what. _Don’t be a fucking idiot. Why the fuck did you call Child Protective Services on me? Do you know they came to my place this afternoon? Just a short while ago? Huh? When I wasn’t even there? They could have—” He cuts himself off before he’s able to say it. They could have found the drugs. He hides them, keeps them well out of reach of Kye, but one look in the medicine cabinet of his bathroom would have been incredibly damning. He has enough in there to wipe out an army. 

She wipes at her eyes with her shoulder, still holding the can of pepper spray at arm’s length. “You don’t - you don’t even know it was me! Those reports are anonymous.”

“Who the fuck else would it be, _ Rey_?” 

“You don’t - you don’t get to call me that!” She squares her shoulders, a little bit more of her bravado back. 

He can change that. 

Another step closer and she’s trembling again. 

“Put the pepper spray down and let’s talk.”

“No.”

“I could wrestle you for it but it wouldn’t be pretty. Put it down.”

“No! You’re a psycho!”

He laughs at that. “Yeah, probably. But you know what I’m _ not? _ A fucking child abuser. I would never, _ ever _ hurt my boy like that. Do you understand me? I’d rather kill my fucking _ self _that lay a hand on that child.”

She lowers her arms when he says that, her guard lowered just a little. Ever defiant, though, she juts out her chin when she speaks back to him. 

“Abuse and neglect can take different forms, Mr. Solo. It - it doesn’t always have to be physical. Trust me, I’ve lived it.”

“I’ve lived it too. You’re not fucking special.”

Tears well in her eyes again. “If you know what it’s like, why in the world would you treat your son the way you do?”

His temper is rising again, rising so much he’s shaking, but the reality of what he’s done has finally hit him. He’s stormed into a classroom. On private property that probably has cameras on every hallway. Threatened a teacher. All of that could be used against him. The investigation with ACS is still open, and it will remain open if he keeps this up. It goes against every natural impulse to stifle his anger, but he has to. 

“He’s well provided for. You’re friends with his nanny, surely you know this. He never goes hungry, he has his own room filled with books and toys. He sees his grandparents often and he’s always with Finn. Always. From the time he wakes up to whenever I get home from work. Does that sound like an abused, neglected child to you?”

“He’s scared of you! And you order him around like he’s a dog, not a child! In the handful of minutes I observed you interact with him, I saw so many red flags. So many. And I’m - I’m mandated, _ by law_, to report whenever I suspect abuse and neglect are at play.” 

He swallows back a curse, running his hands through his hair again. “So it was you.” 

She swallows nervously, but she nods. “Yes.” 

He already knew, of course, but to hear confirmation...it’s too much. What the fuck is he going to do? They’re barely into the school year and she’s already filed a report against him. He’ll have to change schools. Pull Kye out of this environment and place him somewhere else. Back to square one, no progress made with fixing his son. 

“I’m - sorry for this. What I did today. I shouldn’t have,” he tries, but he doesn’t even believe himself, and by the look on her face she doesn’t believe him for a second, either. So it’s time to bargain instead. “What can I do? To make it up to you?”

She scoffs, shaking her head. “Why are you asking about _ me_? I don’t matter. It’s your son who does. Can’t you see that? Can’t you just...agree to let him learn at his own pace, in his own way?”

“Would it get you off my back if I did?”

She doesn’t answer immediately and he can tell she’s thinking it over, that she’s conflicted. That she’s still scared he’s going to do something to her. 

Finally, she says, “I have to report these things. I _ have _ to. And I’ll - I’ll do it all over again, too, if I have any reason to believe that Kye isn’t being taken care of. But if you show me that isn’t the case...if you allow your child some freedom to learn, to express himself in a way that works for him...then yes, I won’t give you trouble.”

He’s out of options. He needs time to process all of this, to decide what to do about Kye’s education. In the meantime, what she’s proposing will have to work. If he doesn’t cooperate, he could lose his son altogether. And that can’t happen. He won’t let it. 

“Fine,” he agrees. 

She seems satisfied with that answer, or as satisfied as one can be with an angry parent who just strong-armed his way into the classroom. 

“Fine,” she echoes, then nods towards the door. “Now...get out. Before I change my mind. Before I call the police and make things even uglier for you. Don’t think that I won’t.”

God, she’s beautiful in her self-righteous anger. Beautiful and magnetic, mesmerizing, like a new kind of drug he can’t say no to. He wants to fuck her. To make her scream. To own her, possess her, so that it feels like she’s in his mercy instead of the other way around. 

These are the thoughts that consume him as he leaves the school that day. 

By the time he’s home, he’s already made up his mind. 

He’s going to ruin her life. Not in an obvious way. Not in a way that would immediately jeopardize the fragile, begrudged understanding they now have. Not in a way that would end up with him losing his kid. 

But he needs her to pay. 

To regret ever crossing him. 

Yes, he’s fully prepared to ruin her fucking life. 

Because he’ll be damned if he lets her ruin his. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STRAP IN, Y'ALL!! 
> 
> I'm gonna be a broken record saying this but please do remember this will end in a HEA. Lots to unpack before that point, though. I hope you'll stay with me even when it gets pretty bleak. 
> 
> My beta and friend Michelle has made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4SyzR4YVHwwCRRaEw9OxAs?si=heNJSrRQSL2xdKF0-5VMCw) for this fic! Go and check it out 😊 Thanks Michelle!
> 
> And thank *you*, readers, for the incredible response to this fic so far. I was so nervous to post this because as I said last chapter, it's so different and darker than my other writing. But you've given me the confidence to continue it and push myself! That means so much to me 💜💜


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW this chapter for drug use and obsessive/stalking behavior

***

It starts off with a simple Google search of her name. 

He finds her on Facebook. On Instagram. On Twitter. No sign of her on dating websites, though, which is oddly satisfying. A large part of him bristles at the idea of there being a _ boyfriend _or lover. Of someone regularly having access to her body, to her innermost thoughts, her desires, her larger-than-life smiles, her scornful frowns. 

Most of her profiles are private, but he doesn’t let that stop him. It’s as simple as finding a picture of some stupid hipster with blond hair and horrible glasses and using him to make a fake account on all platforms. ‘Matt’, a twenty-something engineer who lives in the West Village, befriends a few gullible acquaintances of hers, and that’s all it takes for her to accept his request when he finally sends it. Because ‘mutual’ evokes a sense of comfort, a sense of safety. A mutual follower, a mutual friend. It’s that easy to dupe her. 

Once he has access to her social media, he looks through all of the information that’s available to him. 

She’s nearly 10 years younger than him. 24, soon to be 25. She graduated top of her class from a smaller college in New Hampshire, because of course she did. Little miss perfect then received an additional certification in early childhood special education. That would explain her adamant use of sign language with Kye and wanting students to ‘learn at their own pace’. Utter horseshit. 

That’s only the beginning.

The more he follows her, the more he learns about her, and he is equal parts disgusted and intrigued by all of her personality quirks. 

She loves children. _ Really _ loves them. She’s always humble bragging about what an _ honor _ it is to teach a new generation of young learners. She posts pictures of her students’ drawings on her Instagram. She shares articles on her Facebook about the importance of early intervention, social-emotional learning, and attachment parenting. Even though she doesn’t even have any fucking kids of her own. She just...gets off on taking a holier-than-thou stance on child rearing. Any way but _ her way _is wrong, vile, and damaging, and she doesn’t care who knows it. 

She's a foodie and constantly tweets about what she’s eating, but she keeps in shape by doing ridiculous things like goat yoga and Zombie 5ks. She likes to bake, she goes to trivia every Tuesday at her local sports bar, and she’s passionate about supporting small businesses and thrifting clothes. She’s also an unrepentant nerd. In fact, she flaunts it. She watches Doctor Who. She loves comic books. She takes actual, unironic pride in being a Gryffindor, and even saved up to visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter for her 21st birthday. Who the fuck does that shit? Her, apparently, because she has two whole fucking _photo_ _albums _devoted to it. 

He hates her. 

He hates how _ open _she is about everything. He hates how much she smiles in photos, how relentlessly optimistic she is, how she makes it no secret that she loves her life and the things in it. 

...Yet this hatred does nothing to stop him from saving a video of her enjoying a frothy beer at a bar and then shamefully masturbating to it for the next several days, thinking about her eating his cum with the same level of enthusiasm...

Or downloading every single tagged picture of her in a bikini or yoga pants or low cut top and doing the same damn thing. 

It only spirals downward from there. What starts out as a way of locating her exploitable vulnerabilities and weaknesses turns into a full blown obsession with _ everything _about Rey Niima. He spends hours upon hours studying her. When he wakes up, he checks to see if she’s posted anything new. Before he tries to sleep, he does the same thing. He dreams about her constantly, and they turn increasingly sexual each time. He’s committed her entire body to memory. Wide hazel eyes. A freckled nose which, he finds out, used to be pierced in college. Pink lips, perfect teeth. Small tits, a toned stomach, a surprisingly thick ass. All of this features heavily in the dreams he has about her. 

One morning, he even discovers that he’s rutted against his pillows and ejaculated in his sleep — something he hasn’t done since he was fourteen. 

In the blink of an eye, she becomes a newer, more alluring addiction for him. Even better than his job. In some ways, even better than drugs. He finds himself checking his phone during business meetings, during fashion shows, during dinners that he should spend with Kye...even times when he has the apartment to himself and should be catching up on work. 

That’s how he finds out that she’s going to a club with her friends one night. 

Finn has requested the weekend off, so Kye is at Leia and Han’s until Monday morning when they’ll take him to school. Ben had hoped to make the most of this alone time by working interrupted, but those plans go to shit when a new post from Finn pops up on Instagram. Once he sees that Rey is in the picture, smiling widely and holding up a peace sign, Ben quickly clicks on it. 

The caption reads: 

> _Night on the town for this one’s birthday! First stop: CantoBightNightClub for some drinks and dancing. #ReybieTurns25 #LetsDoThis_

Ben scoffs. He has, unfortunately, heard of Canto Bight. He’s been there many a time, in fact, and he’d vowed to never step foot in there again after a particularly horrible bender of a weekend where he’d woken up alone on the roof, robbed of his wallet and phone, lying in a pool of his own vomit—

He shakes his head, willing himself not to think of that. 

_ Rey _ \- she’s there now. He could go and find her there, easily. 

Find her and…

With unsteady hands, he makes three little white lines on the glass countertop of the coffee table in his living room. 

Then he rolls up a well-used Hamilton bill and snorts up all of the powder until his nose burns.

*** 

He doesn’t have to wait in the long line outside the club before getting in; the bouncer takes one look at Ben’s Rolex and Gucci suit and lets him bypass everyone. Ignoring the shouts of protest from the people who had been next in line, he shoulders past them. 

The thumping, booming bass of the club’s music vibrates around him, strobe lights near blinding in their intensity, but he has a razor sharp focus, determined to catch a glimpse of her.

And he does, after only a few minutes of searching. 

She’s on the main dancefloor, surrounded by a group of friends including Finn. Laughing, dancing, looking like she’s having the time of her life. 

Ben keeps his distance for awhile, deciding on a strategy. He can’t approach her just yet. She’s with friends and he’d rather her be alone. It’ll take a bit of manipulation on his part to make that happen. So he climbs the stairs to the VIP area on the upper level where he has access, knowing it’s the best vantage point to see nearly everyone in the overpacked club. 

Then he waits, never taking his eyes off her. Not that she’s hard to miss; she’s wearing a tight little dress made of sequins that reflect light every time she moves. An easy target. _ Easy prey_, he thinks to himself. But that’s not entirely accurate, is it? She’s more headstrong and stubborn than the women he usually picks up in places like this. He doesn’t have to work hard to get them sucking his cock or spreading their legs. 

With her, he will. It’s been a couple weeks since their standoff, and she doesn’t strike him as the type to forget or forgive so quickly. It’s going to take a lot of charm, flirting, and offers of drinks to make her even tolerate his presence. 

But he can do it. He’s up for the challenge. Because he’s decided he’s taking her home tonight. He can’t keep living like he has, pathetically stalking her social media for small little peeks of her, not when he can have the real thing. 

He’s always been selfish, always been greedy, has always known what he wants and how to get it. 

And he wants her. Desperately. All of her. To fuck and to ruin. His skin crawls and his cock aches with how much he does, and he’s not going to stop until he has her pinned to his mattress, fucking her rough and hard like he’s dreamt of doing time and time again. He’s not going to stop until she’s screaming his name, split open on his cock, begging him for more like a little slut instead of the angel she likes to think she is.

***

Thirty minutes later, when one of Rey’s girl friends pulls her off the crowded dance floor in the direction of the equally crowded bar, Ben seizes his chance. 

Taking the stairs two at a time, he tracks them down. They’re both struggling to get the attention of the bartenders, Rey’s friend more so as she’s petite, standing on her tiptoes to see over the other customers. After several minutes of this and no luck ordering drinks they split up, going to opposite ends of the long bar for a chance to squeeze in. 

Ben smiles. _ Perfect_. 

The friend is wearing jeans, the outline of her phone obvious through the back pocket. Ben sidles up beside her, waits a few seconds, then reaches to grab her phone when she leans forward over the counter. 

He’s out of sight, her phone powered off and tucked into his suit jacket, before she even turns around to punch the unlucky man who she mistakenly assumes has grabbed her ass. 

With that diversion in place, Ben weaves his way through the pack of bodies to where he knows that Rey went off to. 

He locates her quickly, her sequins like a beacon to his coke-addled brain. Then he finally, _ finally _makes his move, coming right up behind her, leaning close so she can hear him.

“Miss Niima.” 

She turns around so fast, she spills the drink that she’s holding all over herself and him. 

“Shit!” 

Eyes big as saucers, her facial features morph from fright to disbelief when she looks up at him, realizing who she’s just bumped into.

“Shit!” she repeats, clutching her now empty plastic cup to her chest. “You scared the shit out of me!” 

“Apologies. I suppose I deserved that. Still, a Tequila Sunrise is much better than pepper spray,” he jokes, making a show of wiping off his designer suit. He has so many suits that ruining this one means nothing, but it’s a way to earn some immediate sympathy from her. 

And much to his satisfaction, he does earn it. She’s still standoffish, still wary of him, but it’s a start.

“Oh, crap - I’m sorry. Uh - here’s a napkin?” She holds up an already soaked cocktail napkin and he grins, in the way that he does to pull women. And it works. She blinks in quick succession and then averts her gaze like she’s flustered. The strobe lights cast everything in an unnatural neon hue so he can’t see if she’s truly blushing but he’d bet on it. 

“I’ll buy you another drink for ruining yours.” It’s a statement, not a question, but she shakes her head quickly.

“No, I’d rather you not. What - what are you doing here?” she shouts, to be heard over the noise.

_ To take you home_, he thinks, unable to help himself from getting a closer look at her now. The sequined dress and black strappy heels she’s wearing are cheaply made, probably from some tacky retailer like Forever 21 or Fashion Nova, but they do their job of accentuating her figure and displaying her assets. Her hair is down around her shoulders, slightly wavy, and she’s even given herself a smokey eye and pink lip. The overall effect is very alluring, he has to admit. Alluring in a different way than her oversized sweaters and converse. Like day and night. He can’t wait to smudge her makeup and rip off all of her clothing but for now, he has to keep playing his game and answer her questions. 

“I do have a personal life, you know. Looks like you do too,” he says, raising his brow. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Teacher in a nightclub, though. Bit unusual.”

She frowns at that. “It’s not like that. I don’t go clubbing a lot.”

“Oh? Don’t you?”

“No, this is my first time here. It’s—” She brushes lingering droplets of drink from the front of her dress, and his eyes linger there too, on the scant cleavage that he can see. She’s nervous, he realizes, even though it looks like she’s already had a few drinks. Even though she stood up to him twice at the school. Nervous because she senses the tension between them? The undercurrent of desire? 

“It’s what?” he asks her when she isn’t forthcoming with a reply, despite knowing what she’d meant to say. He’d fucking stalked her, after all. 

“It’s my birthday. I’m here with my friends. They talked me into celebrating big this year since it’s my twenty-fifth and...well, they were successful.”

He pretends to act surprised. “Happy birthday! Enjoying it so far?”

Her frown falters, like she’s not used to seeing this nicer side of him, but she doesn’t appear suspicious. Her guard is down because of the drinks. 

“I can’t complain,” she shrugs. 

“Then how about that drink? To keep you enjoying yourself.”

“No thanks, Mr. Solo. I’m good.”

He deepens his voice just a bit more and leans in close, like he has a secret to tell her. 

“It’s Ben. And I insist. Anything on the menu. In fact, you should ask the bartender to make you the most expensive drink with the most expensive liquor. My treat.”

She shakes her head no again, backing up to re-establish some distance between them. “That’s nice of you, but I need to go find my friend Rose, she’s probably ordered already—”

“It’s not every day a woman turns twenty-five. Live a little. I’m offering, I can afford it, you will certainly enjoy it. Get a taste of the finer things. Then I can help you find your friend? You’ll need backup. It’s a zoo in here.”

That gives her pause. She bites her lip, considering, as she looks over her shoulder, probably looking for her friend. The same friend whose phone he’d stolen. The sight of her pearly white teeth tugging on the glossy pinkness of her lip goes straight to his cock. 

Determined, he presses, “How about this, we can go to the VIP area on the second level? You can see everything from up there. The servers bring you drinks, too. That way we can look for your friend and you don’t have to push and shove for a chance to flag down a shitty bartender.”

This suggestion grabs her dwindling attention again. 

“Wait, you’re a VIP?” she asks, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, then grimaces. “Oh God, what am I saying? Of course you are. You’re the CEO of _ First Order! _”

“Editor-in-Chief. Not quite the same thing. Been researching me, have you?” 

She splutters at that, caught off guard. “Well, it’s - it’s common knowledge! And I already knew before, when I first reconnected with Finn - he told me - I don’t - I haven’t, like, looked you up online or anything!”

He genuinely laughs at that. If she knew how much he’s looked into _ her_, she wouldn’t feel so embarrassed. “Relax. I was joking. So how about the drink? Consider it my dysfunctional way of making up for what transpired a few weeks back. I know it won’t solve everything, not even close, but...maybe we can start off on the right foot this time?”

She looks over her shoulder again in search of her friend and then sighs, meeting his eyes appraisingly. 

“One drink. That’s it.”

Ben smirks. He’s got her. 

“Of course.” 

***

One drink turns into several, after he orders two rounds of birthday shots for her. Then she agrees to sit down with him on one of the leather couches in the VIP area while she calls her friend and looks for the rest of them in the crowd below.

“It keeps going to her voicemail!” she laments, sipping the Tequila Sunrise that he’d replaced for her. “It’s my birthday, why isn’t she answering? And my texts aren’t going through, either! The signal is shitty up here!”

“Have you tried calling your other friends?”

“Finn picked up once but it was useless. The bass is so loud I couldn’t make out what he was saying!” 

She looks genuinely distressed, and he feels an unexpected pang of sympathy hit him suddenly. Maybe it’s the alcohol in his own system, or maybe the cocaine waning, but he’s feeling far less vindictive than before. In fact, he actually feels a twinge of remorse for taking her friend’s phone. He’s succeeded in getting her alone which was his plan all along, yes, but now he’s less sure of himself. Is this right, what he’s doing? It doesn’t feel right. He’s built up a version of her in his head these past few weeks to hate, but he’s struggling to feel anything close to hatred for her now. 

She feels soft sitting next to him and smells like sunshine and she’s actually _ smiled _ at him tonight, in spite of everything he’s done to her, every threat he made that day in her classroom and every barb he’d thrown and _ God_, why is he so much of a damaged human being that he’s trying to actively damage someone else, too? Someone who he _ knows _is pure of intent, someone he knows deep down is a better person than he can ever hope to be? What does that say about him? 

That he’s fucking disgusting, that’s what. That he’s disgusting and horrible and should just kill himself because he’ll never amount to anything more than an a widower who contributed to his wife’s eating disorder and death. An absent father. An addict. And as if those three traits weren’t damning enough, now he’s also a fucking _ stalker _who manipulates women into spending time with him. 

He’s nothing but a sorry, sad excuse for a man, who does everything he can to avoid that unfortunate truth, including taking drugs. And he can’t even do that right, either. He should know by now that mixing uppers and downers makes him overly emotional yet here he is, three sheets to the wind and crashing from a coke binge, so full of self-loathing that he feels like he could choke on it. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, shoving his hand into his jacket’s pocket. His fingers brush over her friend’s phone and he almost takes it out, but then he feels something else he’d forgotten about. Something else he’d stowed away in there.

Pills. 

Both yellow with a smiley logo stamped on them. 

“What is that?”

He realizes too late that he’d taken them out in front of her. He has two fucking _ ecstasy _tablets in the palm of his hand and he can only stare back at her, blinking stupidly. 

Not stopping to think about whether it’s a good idea, he pops one into his mouth. He can’t keep feeling this way. He needs a pick-me-up. Rolling on E will help him. 

“It’s antacid,” he explains, once he’s swallowed it down.

Her eyes go wide. “_Acid_?”

“No, like...Tums.”

“Oh.” She takes another sip of her drink, missing her straw the first time. She hiccups, then holds out her hand. “Could I have the other? I get bad heartburn when I have too much liquor.” 

Shit. _ Shitshitshit. _“Uh...that’s...that’s probably not a good idea.”

Her brow furrows in an endearing way. “Why not?”

“Because it’s...mine?”

“Oh, piss off, let me have it!” 

She plucks it from his hand before he can make his dulled down reflexes stop her. 

And he watches, horrified, feeling like the room is in slow motion, as she tips back her head—

“Rey, wait!” he yells.

—and drops it into her mouth. 

“Fuck!” he yells again. “FUCK!”

“Ugh, why was that so bitter? Aren’t Tums sweet?” she grimaces, smacking her lips in distaste. She reaches for her drink to wash the taste away but he stops her, panicked. 

“Don’t! Don’t drink. You can’t drink anything, do you hear me?”

“But it’s my birthday!” she pouts. 

“You can’t fucking drink with ecstasy! It fucks with your body’s salt levels, goddammit! Do you want to die?!” 

“W-what?” She gapes at him, her hands reaching for her throat. “_What _ ? What did you say? _ Ecstasy_?! You gave me _ ECSTASY?! _”

“You took it from me!”

“You said it was Tums!”

“I fucking lied!” he roars, beside himself, but the music drowns out the noise. No one else up here is aware of what’s just happened. Not one of the hundreds of people on the ground floor, either. Just him. Just Rey. 

Whose lips are trembling now, her eyes filling up with tears. 

“You’re a fucking _ MONSTER_!” she screams back, then throws her drink in his face. 

He’s momentarily stunned, so stunned that he isn’t able to immediately grab for her when she stands up on wobbly legs and rushes towards the stairs. 

“Rey! _ Wait_!”

Forcing his body to work, he follows her as fast as he can down the stairs. She’s quick for a drunk person, God she’s quick, but her dress shimmers in the club’s frenetic lighting, helping him keep track of where she’s headed. 

So when she disappears to the very back end of the club that leads to the outdoor pavilion, he has no choice but to follow her. He’s gotten them into this mess and he’s going to get them out, or he’ll never be able to live with himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...so that happened LOL 
> 
> Interested to see what you guys think about this chapter. I went back and forth between how I wanted it to go but ultimately, I needed them both to be on the same level of altered reality so...this is what I came up with. Huge thanks to Michelle for always encouraging me to be brave with my writing choices. She talked me out of some doubts I had and for that I owe her my firstborn. She's also writing a fic for Dadam's "You Need A Teacher" collection called ["Seducing Mr. Solo".](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20497022/chapters/48641804) HIGHLY RECOMMEND! 
> 
> I also have to plug a round robin-style fic that me and my fellow Dadam writers participated in. It's a Great British Bake Off AU called ["When I Kneaded You"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20616716) 🥖❤️️
> 
> [Sunflower's Playlist.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4SyzR4YVHwwCRRaEw9OxAs)


	4. Chapter 4

***

Ben had a few ideas how his night would go, but none of his plans involved chasing after a freakishly fast woman while drunk off his ass, trying to convince her to throw up. The ecstasy he uses is strong as shit and only takes thirty minutes to kick in for him, so he knows it’ll be even less for her. It needs to be out of her system quickly so she doesn’t absorb it. Time is of the essence, here - but holy _ fuck _is she fast. Must be all of those Zombie 5ks. 

“Get back here!” he shouts at her, trying to weave in and out of the crowd outside as quickly as he can. 

Canto Bight is one of the largest nightclubs on this side of Manhattan, and he sends up a curse to whichever dumbfuck architect designed this sprawling place as he runs after her past the main pavilion and into the pleasure garden. Yes, a fucking _pleasure_ _garden_. This entire place’s gimmick is that it’s a futuristic twist on 18th century London nightlife, complete with an outdoor entertainment space designed to mimic Vauxhall Gardens. 

_ Rococopunk_, it advertises itself, and he’s never hated that expression more than he does right now. Fuck Canto Bight, fuck Rey Niima, fuck _ him_, this is awful. 

Up ahead, he sees her suddenly veer off into one of the many side paths amongst the rows and rows of hedges. There’s only one way out; turning back around onto the main pathway, so she can’t escape him anymore. _ Thank God_. He’s getting fucking winded sprinting this much. He’s already got a stitch in his side. He presses his hand against it as he turns the corner, catching another glimpse of those sequins—

And then: unspeakable, painful burning in his eyes, so much that it feels like his skin is boiling off. 

“_FUCK!!!_” he screams.

It all happens so fast after that. 

One second he’s standing upright albeit staggering, coughing violently, blinded and wanting to claw his eyes out. The next he’s been _ flipped over _onto his back so hard that the breath is knocked from his lungs. 

She’d fucking pepper sprayed him then _ thrown him _ onto the ground like a sack of potatoes. Like a bag of sand. All six foot three, two hundred pounds of him. While wearing a dress and heels. 

What the fuck kind of Kung Fu movie has he stumbled into? And where in the _fuck _had she been hiding that pepper spray, in her fucking underwear?! 

Ben pushes himself up onto his elbows, his ribs aching, gasping for breath. He’s never had them broken before so he doesn’t know what that feels like, but _ something _isn’t right. At the very least, he’ll be badly bruised. Worst case scenario, he’s punctured a lung. Gravel digs into his exposed skin, his swollen shut eyes are screaming in pain, and there’s a ringing in his ears but they still work well enough for him to freeze when he hears her voice. 

That, and because a stiletto heel is being pressed into his Adam’s apple. 

“Move and I’ll fucking end you.”

“Fuck, cunting shit of a fuck—!”

She grinds the heel just a bit deeper, showing him just a hint of the damage she could really inflict to his windpipe, and Ben immediately shuts up. 

“You have five seconds to tell me how to _ undo what you did _or I’ll pepper spray you again,” she seethes. 

“Throw up!” Ben rasps.

She guffaws. “That’s rich coming from you, you’re like a manchild!”

“THROW UP, I said _ THROW UP_, not grow up, FUCK!” 

“...Oh.”

The heel is removed from his throat and Ben exhales raggedly, letting out the air he’d been holding. He lays there in the gravel, stunned, the smell of cigarette smoke, alcohol, and weed from the nearby crowd intermingling with the overwhelming smell of pepper in his sinuses. Nearby, he can hear her gagging. 

“I can’t do it! How do you do it?!”

“Back. Back of the throat. Wiggle your fingers,” he manages to get out, his own throat on fire. 

More gagging, and then she starts crying. 

“I can’t! Help me! Help!” 

He hears her move back towards him and then feels her grab at his arm, pulling his hand up to her lips. 

_ Oh shit. Nononono, don’t do that, no_— 

Just as quickly, she shoves it away. A small mercy. 

“Ugh, the pepper! You rubbed your eyes!”

_ What the hell was I supposed to do?, _he wants to say, but he doesn’t have the energy. 

She curses under her breath, like she’s mentally preparing herself, then grabs at his hand again.

“Do it! Quickly!”

He tries to jerk his arm away this time but she’s strong, or at least stronger than he is at the moment. 

“Don’t make me,” he hisses.

She pulls on his hand. “Do it!!”

“I CAN’T!”

“_WHY_?!” 

He doesn’t want to tell her the truth. 

_ My wife used to beg me to do it when she physically couldn’t make herself vomit anymore. She used to scream, cry, descend into panic attacks if food wasn’t out of her fast enough. I spent far too many nights on the floor of our bathroom beside her, helping her through it, the stench of bile inescapable. _

“Please?_” _ Rey tries again, sobbing, her voice sounding desperate now. “Mr. Solo - _ Ben - please_!”

_ Fuck_. Fuck everything. He can’t say no to her. Just like Bazine. 

Wordlessly, he blindly feels for the back of her neck, placing one of his hands there to steady her. With the other, he pushes past her lips. Her throat closes up against the invasion, but he shoves his fingers further back with practiced ease, then moves them up and down. He’s done this so much, he could do it in his sleep. So much he has nightmares about it, and he knows this experience is only going to add to that tally. 

But it works. When he feels her body tense up, hears her gag, he rolls out of the way onto his side. 

She retches behind him. It isn’t a lot. He doesn’t even know if it’s enough to have removed all of the E from her system. He estimates it’s been about fifteen minutes since they’ve both taken it, so she’ll know soon enough whether the vomiting worked. They both will. 

Until then…

Ben tries to open his eyes and he’s able to this time without searing pain, although his vision is still cloudy. He can see the faint outline of her, along with those fucking sequins, but not much else. 

Moaning quietly, trying not to throw up himself, he closes his eyes again, spots dancing in his vision from the multicolored lights strung up above them. 

***

After awhile, the pain goes away. Both in his eyes and throughout his body from the fall. Nothing hurts now. Quite the opposite. He feels wonderful. Even the gravel beneath his back feels good. Like a sort of exotic massage. Something people would go to the spa and pay a lot of money for but he gets to experience for free. Right here. Maybe Canto Bight isn’t so bad after all. 

Ben spreads his arms out, sighing, then brings his hand to his nose, wiping away the snot that’s accumulated there from the pepper spray. _ Fuck, _that feels so good. He rubs at his nose again, not bothering to contain the blissful groan that escapes past his lips. 

“Are you guys okay over here?” a voice calls.

Ben startles slightly at that, sitting up to see who is speaking. No one he recognizes. Some guy in a neon green brocade waistcoat and pink wig, carrying a tray of what looks like jell-o shots. An employee of the club, then. They all have to dress up in costumes. 

“I’m fine. So good. Enjoying the night. How are you?” Ben asks. 

The employee just stares at him, not answering the question, then nods at Ben’s lap. “Is she okay?”

Ben’s gaze flicks down. “Oh.”

Rey. 

Curled up against him, using his knee as a pillow. She isn’t asleep; she’s blinking, lashes fluttering against her cheeks, and her mouth parts as the silence stretches on. 

“I’m okay,” she mumbles. “I’m okay. I’m really okay.”

Ben looks up at the employee again, repeating in case he didn’t hear. “She said she’s okay.” 

She’s still here. She hasn’t...left. Why hasn’t she left? He thought that she would have by now. Gone back inside the club and found her friends, getting the hell out of this place. Instead, she’s by his side. And that can only be for one reason. She’s high, too. Subdued, out of it. Not herself. Not the girl who’d blinded him and knocked him on his ass. Who wanted nothing to do with him. 

Slowly, taking care, he brushes a lock of hair from her face. Her hair is unbelievably soft. Spun silk. And it smells incredible. The same sunshine smell as the rest of her. A mixture of sunscreen, ocean waves, and...childhoods spent at the beach. Life was simple then. Always with nannies, never with his parents, but he was happy nonetheless. _ Happier_. Not so complicated. She reminds him of all of that.

To hold back tears, Ben clears his throat at the same time that the employee does too. 

“If you’re both fine, would you mind moving to a different location? We have plenty of outdoor seating available and we like to keep the walkways clear.”

“Sure, yeah. Sure. We’ll get up in a minute. Thank you.” 

Seemingly satisfied with that answer, the employee lingers for only a few seconds more and then goes on his way, leaving them alone again. 

“I feel so strange. Even saying words feels strange. Like how if you write out a word too many times it stops looking like English.” 

Ben looks down and finds her staring up at him. Her makeup is smudged, from crying or because she threw up he can’t say, but that doesn’t matter. She’s beautiful. He’s struck by her beauty, the force of it robbing him of breath. 

“Is it normal to feel this strange?” she asks. 

“No. You’re—” He wets his lips, deciding how to break the news to her as gently as possible. “Rey, I think you might be rolling. I couldn’t help you. The vomiting didn't work. I’m - I’m sorry.”

If he weren’t so high, the knowledge that he’d failed her would cut deep. The guilt would ruin him, and maybe that still might happen in the morning when he doesn’t have chemicals coursing through his rotting system, making him feel emotions he can’t experience naturally. For now, though...the happiness, peace, and contentment wins out over anything else. If he had to guess, she’s probably feeling the same thing. 

“Oh.” Rey is silent for a time, digesting his words, and then does something he isn’t anywhere near prepared for: she starts rubbing her cheek against his leg, over and over, like she’s a kitten. “I was so afraid of how it would feel. But it feels good. You feel good.”

That wrenches at his heart at such an unexpected way that he feels the tears well up again. What had he been _ thinking_, trying to hurt someone like this? Trying to cause her harm? She was right about him. He’s a monster. And she’s an innocent, much in the same way that Kye is. She sees the world through a softer lens, sees the good in people. Even for those who don’t deserve it, who have done her wrong before. Like him. 

“Rey, I’m not a good man,” he tells her, stroking her hair again, letting it anchor him. “I’ve done a lot of things that I’m not proud of.”

“Everyone has their dark sides.” 

“No, I mean...tonight, even tonight, I’ve done things that I shouldn’t have.” It’s torture, disentangling his fingers from her hair, but he has to show her the phone he stole. Her friend’s phone. He has to tell her how awful he’s been, looking her up online for weeks. Following her here.

She catches his hand as it’s halfway to his jacket pocket, clasping it between both of hers. They both gasp at the contact, feeling the same thing. Her hands are so warm and soft. The hands of a nurturer, the hands of an angel. She’s an angel. 

He doesn’t realize he’s said that out loud until her face lights up in one of those megawatt smiles and oh God, her _ laugh _ \- has he ever heard her laugh? Like bells chiming, calling him home. 

“Oh, hey - don’t cry,” she soothes, sitting up properly. She touches his face, fingers caressing his cheekbone, collecting his tears. And then…

Then she wraps her arms around him in an embrace, and _ hugs _ him. It’s too much. It’s too much! But somehow, not enough either. 

“You haven’t been given one of these in awhile, have you?”

His shoulders _ rack _with sobs and it’s the best feeling of his life, this release. He shakes his head no, wrapping his arms around her to hug her back, and inhales deeply, letting her into his senses, letting her surround him. 

“I forgive you,” she murmurs, rocking him back and forth like he’s a child. 

“_How_ \- how can you say that, when you don't know what I’ve done?”

“Shh. Tell me later. Not right now. Let’s stay in this moment. Let’s put everything else behind us. Do you hear that song?”

It drifts overhead, its slow tempo and almost eerie chords so different from the thumping, upbeat music that played inside of the club. It’s beautiful, and haunting, and when she pulls him to his feet and coaxes him to follow her deeper into the garden, to locate where the music is coming from, he follows. Like a moth drawn to a flame. 

They find a smaller dance floor in a stone courtyard, surrounded on all sides by lush foliage and tents where club members lounge, drinking and smoking. Everyone dancing looks possessed, most of them probably high on similar mood enhancing drugs. 

Ben has never been much of a dancer. In fact, he usually avoids it. But Rey asks him to - urging him to follow her into the crowd of writhing dancers, all of them lost in their own pleasure - and he can’t resist her.

They sway to the music, chest to chest, giving themselves up to it like everyone else around them. While they dance, Rey looks up at him intensely and he stares back at her, losing himself in the hidden depths of her eyes. There’s pain there, a fragility, but also a steel strength. God, she’s so strong. In both body and mind. Strong where he’s weak, soft curves where he’s all sharp edges and angles. They complement each other - almost too much. So much that it would be dangerous, explosive, if they gave in to this tension between them. He feels it, and he knows she does, too. Hazel eyes searching, pink lips parted. 

But Ben has never done well with temptation. Dangerous and explosive are the status quo for him. They’re his normal, what he seeks out, what he craves. 

So when she kisses him softly, he returns it with the full force of a hurricane, the song fading out as they press against one another, seeking friction that will inevitably lead to something much more than a kiss. 

_ Never meant to hurt you, no _

_ Never meant to make you cry _

_ I’m so sorry, honey _

_ For what I’m becoming _

***

They take a taxi to his place. They can barely keep their hands off each other on the ride there. The need to touch her is so strong, so intense, that it’s nearly unbearable to be apart for long. But they make it the entire way, somehow, and when they do, it’s Ben’s turn to pull her along after him. Past the doorman and into the lobby, down the corridor to the elevator, and up fifty floors to his apartment. 

She stops short when she enters, still holding onto his hand. 

“You live here?”

“Yes.”

She looks around in wonder, like she’s never seen a place like this before. Maybe she hasn’t. A teacher's salary won’t give you an apartment like this, no matter how hard you try. 

He’s never given much thought to it, but it is nice. Open space, vaulted ceilings, marble countertops and floors, an excess of windows. It’s too far up to see the skyline unless you stand right by them, so he takes her to the best view: his bedroom. 

“Wow. Just wow,” she breathes, her fingers tracing the window glass over and over, leaving streaks from her fingerpads. He stands behind her, covering her hands with his own so they move as one. 

“What do you think?” he asks, mouthing at the skin of her neck. Her pulse flutters underneath his lips like a butterfly’s wing.

“I’m usually afraid of heights but...it’s beautiful. So high up. Everything below you, nothing above. I wonder if this is how God feels? How angels do?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t feel like God when he looks down at the city below him. He usually feels...empty. Detached. This is the first time in awhile that he’s been able to fully appreciate the cityscape that comes with the exorbitant price tag attached to this place. Mostly due to the wonders of E, but it’s also because of her. She makes him feel things that he’s avoided or dismissed as inconsequential. 

“Do you ever get lonely, being so far removed from it all?” she asks.

He knows Kye does. But Ben would be lying if he said no. Lying doesn’t come so naturally to him in the state he’s in right now. Ecstasy is aptly named. It makes you lower your defenses, transforming you into the person you _ should _be, if you were insanely happy all of the time. And what he should be doing is telling the truth. Every instinct is calling out for him to be honest, be open. 

“I do get lonely. A lot,” he confesses. “And I cope with it in all the wrong ways.” 

She turns to face him. Raises her hand to caress his cheek, again and again, her fingertips featherlight on his skin like she’s committing him to memory. He practically _ melts _ into her touch. He would do anything she asked if she were to keep touching him like this forever. 

“I get lonely too, sometimes. It’s hard not to in a city this big. You have to find places, people that you connect to. Anything else...it’s just filling the hole that loneliness digs, but not helping you out of it. Connections ease the loneliness altogether. Connecting. That’s what is important.” 

Connecting. He can feel himself connecting to her. Every passing second, it feels like an invisible thread between them is tightening, sewing them together. Like it’s fate, that they’ve ended up finding each other. So what if it’s dangerous, so what if it’s fucked? Right here, right now - it feels so incredibly _ right. _

He picks her up with little effort, the faint pain of his fall from earlier only an echo, and takes her to his bed. He’s thought of her being here, of course, but every feverish fantasy pales in comparison to the real experience. And he finds that he no longer wants the rough, dispassionate fucking he imagined. No. He wants to open her up, explore her body. Give her pleasure instead of take it. She deserves it. She deserves to be treated like she matters, like she’s important. Because she is. 

“I don’t - I don’t really have experience with this,” she tells him, sighing, as he first takes her heels off, then kisses his way up her spread legs. “I’ve never…”

She trails off, sighing again, when he licks at her thigh crease. Then the other, repeating this several times. Unable to help himself, he licks a stripe up the seam of her panties, too. She smells fantastic, that sunshine mixing with her womanly musk. His tongue catches on the outline of her clit through the fabric, the little pearl already so hard for him. 

_ Fuck. _He has to see her bare. He just might die if he doesn’t. 

Pulling her panties to the side, his mouth waters again at the sight of her perfect pink cunt. So wet, her folds glistening with arousal. She’s tiny. He doesn’t think he could fit more than one finger inside of her without a stretch. His cock throbs in his pants at the thought. 

“Oh - Oh _ God_,” she breathes, when he slots his lips over her clit and starts to _ suck_, hard. “Oh God. Oh God Oh _ God_. That feels...so good. So good,” she keeps murmuring.

Her fingers tangle in his hair, and he takes that as a sign to keep going. He runs his index finger along her slit several times, entranced by the texture. It’s sufficiently wet with her own slick when he finally pushes it inside her white hot heat. He feels her walls clamp down on him immediately, keeping him close, as he starts to rub her inside, feeling for that place that will heighten her pleasure. 

When he finds it, he knows; she cries out in rapture, bucking her hips up, but he doesn’t lose his pace, continuing to suck and finger her until her thighs tremble around him. 

“I’m gonna - _ Ben_, I’m—”

His name, past her lips, make him lose his resolve. He wants to see her come, wants to help her experience the euphoria of an orgasm, but he wants to join her, his own need so insistent. Sometimes ecstasy can interfere with an erection, but that isn’t the case for him right now. He’s _ aching_, so hard that the movement of his pants and boxers against his skin makes him cry out, too. And when he starts rubbing his cock against her cunt, her slick guiding the way, he feels like he’s about to explode, the pleasure is so intense. 

He drags his length along her slit, each thrust making them both shudder with passion, his cockhead hitting her clit with each pass. His precum mixes with her wetness and it becomes so slippery, he has to keep himself propped up on one hand while guiding his cock through her folds with the other.

Rey comes first. She wraps her legs around his waist, grinding against him, and throws her head back. The sight of her in the throes of her passion, crying his name repeatedly, sends him over the edge, his orgasm so sharp and intense he tastes blood in his mouth. And as he paints her cunt and her stomach with his spend, gasping for breath that just won’t come to him, he’s hit with a life altering, mind bending realization. 

He hasn’t succeeded in ruining her, and he never will. And he doesn’t _ want _ to anymore, not after this, not after tonight. _ She _ \- she’s ruined him instead. For any other person. It’s _ her_. It’s only going to be her. 

He passes out soon after, their clothing still halfway on, holding onto her for fear that if he lets go for even a second, she’ll slip through his fingers and be gone forever.

***

When he wakes up several hours later, it’s to the sound of crying. 

He’s disoriented. Not quite sober yet, not quite the worst come down he’s had in his life - he’s groggy as all hell, though. Turning over in his bed, the light from the bathroom makes him squint. 

“Rey?”

She’s up. Why is she up? It’s - he looks at the alarm clock on his end table - five in the fucking morning. What is she doing in there?

Rolling out of bed, he pulls up his disheveled clothing. The pain from earlier, when she’d knocked him on his ass, is back with a vengeance. He’s sore all over and it hurts to walk, so he slowly limps to the bathroom. The door is just slightly ajar and he pushes it open, squinting again as the full force of the bright fluorescents hit him. 

Then the full force of what he sees in front of him hits, too, and he swears his heart stops beating. 

Rey. On the floor. Clutching her knees to her chest, her eyes swollen and red from crying. And the large medicine cabinet in his bathroom - flung open. Bottles and bottles of pills on the counter. Baggies and packets of drugs. She’d taken _ everything _out from its hiding place, laying it all out in the open. 

Confronted with the sheer enormity of how _ much _it is...he feels dizzy. 

When she lifts her head and spears him with a glare so intense and full of rage, holding up her friend’s phone that he’d completely forgotten about, that dizziness is replaced with fear. 

“How _ dare _you?” she whispers it, but the impact is like a knife to the stomach, and he knows, deep down...he’s already lost her. And that knowledge, paired with the paralyzing, turbulent guilt building inside him—

He thinks it might actually kill him, this time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now accepting theories for where Rey hid that pepperspray LOL 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'm still catching up on comments, but I appreciate all the feedback and thoughts about Ben. I know he's an absolute mess right now and has done things that are very worrying. Take care of yourselves and know when to step away if it becomes too much, because it's going to get worse from here. He needs to hit rock bottom before any major change occurs. 
> 
> The song Ben and Rey danced to this chapter is called "What I'm Becoming" and is in this fic's [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4SyzR4YVHwwCRRaEw9OxAs)! Give it a listen, I am absolutely obsessed
> 
> BIG THANKS to sofondabooks and my bae Keely for giving me [two lovely graphics](https://twitter.com/alfreylo/status/1175903944297631745?s=20) for this fic!! Look at that picture of Kye 😭 Just how I imagined him. You two are both so kind and encouraging and Idk how to handle it ❤️️


	5. Chapter 5

***

Every morning, Rey stands outside her classroom and gives her Kindergartners three choices of a greeting: a thumbs up, a high five, or a hug. 

Every morning, Kye Solo, the boy that Finn nannies, opts for a hug. 

It is, secretly, Rey’s favorite part of the day. She cares deeply for all fifteen of her new students, but there’s something about Kye that tugs at her heartstrings. He lingers during each hug, his tiny chest heaving out a sigh as Rey rocks him side to side, and she has to keep from crying every time. 

The boy is very bright. He knows all of his colors, all of his shapes, can match an animal to each letter of the alphabet when she prompts him. He’s also incredibly kind and perceptive, whether it’s sharing his crayons, helping others up when they fall down, or making sure to play with students who still seem a bit homesick. His social and emotional skills are outstanding, in fact, and she knows that’s in no small part due to Finn’s influence. But there is one area of Kye’s development that is far below that of his classmates: his speech. 

Rey already knew that he struggled before meeting him; Finn prepped her well before the first day of class to be patient and understanding, because Kye couldn’t verbalize his wants and needs like other students. Although she quickly gets the hang of understanding his mixture of hand signals, head gestures, and drawings that he uses to communicate, Kye’s frustration with himself is clear. He knows he’s different, that he can’t speak back to his friends who talk to him, and that breaks Rey’s heart. 

Never one to back down from a challenge, she makes it her mission to teach him sign language. Her own skills are rusty, not having used it with much frequency since her ASL courses in school, but she stays up every night trying to familiarize herself with as many expressions as possible. And the results are so, so worth it. Within a few weeks of signing to him and teaching her other students a few phrases, Kye blossoms under her eyes. 

He can ask his friends ** _how are you_**_? _, ** _what’s wrong_**_?, _ and his favorite: ** _do you want to play with me_**? 

He can tell her what his favorite book is - Corduroy, or ** _bear book_**, as he signs it - and ask her to read it aloud during storytime. 

One time, during a one-on-one lunch they spend signing with each other, he even signs ** _You’re my friend_**. 

“You’re my friend too, sweetheart,” she says back to him, signing along. Kye beams at her with his slightly crooked baby teeth, offering her half of his apple slices. Rey hastily wipes her tears away when he turns his attention back to his own lunch. 

His progress continues throughout August and by the first week of September, Rey knows that she needs extra help. Kye is such a fast learner that it is only a matter of time before his ASL eclipses her own. Rey’s close friend Rose Tico is Coruscant Academy’s speech therapist, and she had already met with Kye briefly to give her recommendations. 

“He does need help, being nonverbal. You were right to refer him to me,” she murmurs quietly outside of Rey’s classroom one day while the students nap inside. “Good news is, he should qualify for services no problem. Once his IEP is in place I can work with him during class. Honestly, I’m surprised his parents haven’t asked for an evaluation yet. Tuition here costs a small fortune, you think they’d be on top of their kid’s education, no?” 

Rey worries at her lip. “It’s just his father. He’s...very busy, from what Finn has told me. I halfway wonder if he’s involved in Kye’s schooling at all.”

Rose winces, understanding. “Shit. Well, it does happen sometimes, regardless of how rich or poor the parents are. Either way, you’ll need the father’s consent for Kye to get the help he needs. Should be fairly straightforward once the paperwork is sorted, though.” 

But it isn’t straightforward at all. 

Rey goes to Finn first, asking for him to reach out to Mr. Solo. Finn tries that, but apparently the man is so scarce that he never has a chance to talk to Kye’s father for more than five minutes at a time. 

“He’s definitely reachable by phone, but I’d probably get fired if I gave you his personal cell. He’s c-r-a-z-y about things like that,” Finn tells her over the phone. His spelling out words is indicative that he’s with Kye, and Rey’s frustration softens just a bit at the thought. 

“Okay. Well, I don’t want that to happen. Does he have an assistant? Secretary? Anyone I can contact who can make sure that a meeting is set-up?” 

“Technically I’m not supposed to give out his PA’s number for non-business calls, either, but it’ll put you in touch with him at least. I’ll text it to you when I get home. I’m at the library with Kye right now. You’ve really got him hooked on bear books, huh?” 

Rey smiles, remembering the way Kye’s eyes light up whenever he gets to read Corduroy. “Tell him I said hi, and to check out as many bear books as the librarians will let him.” 

“Will do.”

Rey is lulled into a false sense of security when she manages to get a hold of Solo’s personal assistant named Mitaka fairly easily. He helps her schedule a parent-teacher conference with Mr. Solo for the following Tuesday at 7 a.m., an hour before school. 

But when Tuesday rolls around, Finn drops Kye off like he usually does, no parent in sight. 

“What happened?” she asks, crestfallen, even though she knows. Mr. Solo has forgotten about the meeting. Either that, or he just couldn’t be bothered to show. Neither of these possibilities bode well. She’d been hoping, _ praying_, that this process would go quickly and smoothly for Kye’s sake. 

Finn sighs. “He was in rare form when we left this morning. I meant to ask him, but Kye was so excited to come here today that I just - I just didn’t want to spoil his good mood by bringing it up with Solo. Kye gets antsy when his dad is angry. I’m sorry, Rey.” 

Rey tucks that alarming bit of knowledge about Kye’s reaction to his father’s anger away - at least for now. She can deal with it later. “It’s okay, Finn. You did the right thing, focusing on Kye. Look, he’s happy as a clam over there.” They both turn from the doorway, watching as Kye dutifully puts his tiny bookbag away in his cubby and runs to join a pair of students who are playing house at the toy kitchen. “We’re starting a unit on dinosaurs today, that’s probably why he was acting so excited.” 

Finn affectionately nudges her shoulder with his. “Nah, he’s excited because he loves you, Rey. Being here, with you, with his classmates…it’s his happy place.” 

That should make Rey happy too but instead, she’s unspeakably sad. If this is Kye’s happy place, what is his home like? What kind of man must his father be, to not even show up to an important meeting about his son’s welfare?

Determined, Rey places a stern phone call to Mitaka right before class starts, not taking no for an answer when he gives her the option to reschedule for another day. Another day isn’t good enough_. _ It _ needs _ to be today. She asks for Solo’s time of arrival repeatedly until Mitaka eventually relents, promising to call her back ASAP with an update. 

The update isn’t what she’d hoped - Solo wants to move the meeting to 4 p.m. - but he’s sorry for doing so, or so his assistant says. It’s a start, and feels like a triumph considering the hoops she’s already had to jump through. 

***

It’s nearly a quarter past four when there’s finally a knock on the door. 

Rey look up from playing dinosaurs with Kye, and he does as well, his eyes going from the door back to her. 

“Be right back,” she assures him, standing up. “You keep on playing with Rex, Spikey and Brach, okay?” 

Kye nods at that, signing yes, and returns his attention to his toys. 

School normally lets out at three and Finn had arrived around then to pick Kye up, but Rey made the quick decision for Kye to stay for this meeting. It is about him, after all, and he hadn’t seemed to object one bit to staying at school for longer. Neither had she. 

It’s been nice, spending some quality time with him. They’ve already been on the Kindergarten playground’s swing set out back, drawn with chalk all over the sidewalk, and now they’ve come up with a really elaborate story about the stuffed dinosaurs going to see a movie. Kye had giggled along when she made ridiculous voices for all of the dinosaurs and hearing a vocal sound out of him, even though it isn’t speech, gives her hope. Hope that this will work out, hope that Mr. Solo will at least listen to what she has to say. 

Steeling herself, Rey opens the door. 

Her first impression of Mr. Solo is that he is nothing like Kye. They’re like night and day. It isn’t physical, the difference, but in their energies. 

Their physical resemblance to each other is undeniably strong, so strong that it’s a bit eerie how much they look alike. She sees where Kye gets his dark locks, his mouth, his nose, his facial structure. She realizes this is how Kye will look like as a man, as a grown up. Tall, broad, all muscles.

But that is where the similarities between them end. Where Kye emanates pure childhood sweetness and joy, Rey gets the immediate sense that Mr. Solo - this titan of a man - doesn’t have anything pure or sweet or joyful about him at all. He looks like hell, despite the sleek navy business suit he wears. Like he hasn’t slept in an age. And his eyes...those aren’t Kye’s shade of hazel. They’re like whiskey mixed with fire, molten, full of so much hidden depth and danger that she feels an uneasy feeling crawl up her spine as he stares at her. It makes her want to run away, to back off and retreat like a threatened animal. 

She stamps that feeling down, though, mindful that Kye is still here. She’s doing this for him. To advocate for him. She’s not going to chicken out despite her sudden nerves. 

“Hi! You must be Mr. Solo. Come on in, Kye and I were just playing dinosaurs while we waited—”

He doesn’t like that, immediately interrupting her, nostrils flaring. “He’s still here? His nanny - he should’ve taken him home by now.” 

So he at least knows his child’s schedule well enough to realize Kye should have left school already. That’s...well, it’s not ‘good’ - knowing your child’s location should be the bare minimum expectation of any parent - but it’s adequate. Shows that he has a modicum of involvement. 

Rey decides to push a little more, perfecting an air of apologetic innocence and confusion as she explains why his son is still here, despite it being a calculated choice on her part. To her surprise, he doesn’t raise any issue with that, instead following her into the classroom, and her guard lowers a little bit. 

Until she sees the way Kye reacts to him. 

His open, expressive face is shuttered, like he’s withdrawn into himself, as he hurriedly pushes the stuffed dinosaurs behind his back. Like he’s embarrassed to be seen with them, like he doesn’t want his father to know that he plays with toys. 

And the red flags keep popping up from there, especially when she tries to explain the situation to Kye, kneeling to his height to better communicate with him. Kye sighs against her like he does during their morning hugs, and Rey immediately understands - he feels safe around her, feels relief. He doesn’t feel that around his dad. Finn’s words echo in her head. _ Kye gets antsy when his dad is angry_. Well, she’s not going to let that happen. 

** _In trouble_****?, **Kye signs, and Rey is quick to sign back, shaking her head. 

“No, it’s okay, honey. You aren’t in trouble. Your dad is here because I just wanted to talk to him about a few things, okay?” 

“What’s happening? What are you doing with him?” Mr. Solo interrupts, and Rey bristles. He’s talking about Kye like he isn’t even in the room. 

“_Kye _and I are using sign language to speak to each other. You’ve learned a lot of words since we’ve started talking to each other this way, haven’t you?” she asks Kye, making a point to involve him in the conversation. 

That seems to perk Kye up a bit. He nods back, signing yes to her, but deflates again when she asks him if he wants to share what signs he’s learned. Another red flag. 

Still, she tries to gently coax him out of the shell he’s withdrawn into. “I think he’d be really impressed, Kye. You can show him how to spell your name! Wouldn’t you like that? Or - or you could spell out ‘Dad’, couldn’t you? Hm?”

What happens next is what she’d feared all along: Mr. Solo doesn’t want anything to do with the sign language. He doesn’t want Kye to learn it, and he doesn’t want Kye to use it to communicate. He’s in complete, utter denial that his son needs help. He’s an idiot. A selfish, willfully ignorant excuse for a father. Even worse, he begins to take his frustration out on Kye, snapping at him to stop sucking his thumb. Red flag again. She thought it would be a good idea to include Kye, to make him feel seen and heard, but it’s obvious that any further involvement on his part will be to his detriment. 

“Mr. Solo, can I speak to you privately for a moment, please?” 

He straight up _ refuses_, arguing that anything that she needs to say to him can also be said in front of Kye, and Rey gets even angrier. He thinks he can act this way? In _ her _ classroom, in front of his child? He’s an even bigger idiot than she thought if he thinks she’ll allow that. If he wants to fight dirty, fine. She can do that, but not with his child in the thick of it. That’s a hard line she won’t cross. 

Leaning down to Kye’s level again, she goes against Solo’s demands and suggests that Kye go to the reading center and listen to an audiobook of _Corduroy_. He happily obeys, looking more than a bit relieved to do something else. 

When she looks back at Solo again, he’s just as angry as her. He tries to get under her skin next, flaunting his power and wealth. Telling her that her classroom is dated. She doesn’t care about that, she doesn’t buckle under the insults, even though they sting. He’s trying to change the subject, to make her inferior, but she’s not going to let him. _ Fuck him. _

They continue on back and forth, getting even more riled up, and Rey is grateful that Kye can’t hear what his father is saying about him, because it’s hurtful. It’s ableist. All this talk about wanting his child to be _ normal_, to speak like any other kid - it’s vile, so vile that when Solo says he’ll _ make _Kye catch up to his peers, Rey loses her temper entirely.

“You can’t just - just make your son fit into a perfect little box! He’s _ five _ and you’re in denial about how much help he really needs. And you’re just too...too ignorant and selfish to consider that maybe he needs a different approach!”

Shaking all over from her fury, she gets right up in his face. This close, she can feel his body heat, can smell his expensive cologne, can even see the specks of gold in his eyes. She doesn’t let any of that distract her. 

“You’re not the first parent to give me trouble, Mr. Solo, and you won’t be the last either. But I’ll be damned—” She pokes at his chest, wanting him to hurt, hurt just as much as he’s hurt his son by not giving him the attention he so desperately needs. “I’ll be _ damned _ if I have to see a bright young boy like Kye held back because his father is too much of an idiot to see some sense!” 

Chest heaving, choking back tears, feeling like she’s close to throwing up, she waits for Mr. Solo to fight right back—

But he doesn’t this time. He just...stares at her, like he’s caught off guard, his expression blank. 

Then he walks straight over to Kye, pulling off his headphones. Kye is startled by this and grows visibly upset. She’s never seen him this upset. He kicks his arms and legs out but he’s small, so small that Mr. Solo easily picks him up despite his struggling. 

“We’re leaving, Kye.” 

Kye’s face screws up, bursting into tears, and he reaches his arm out to Rey over his father’s shoulder, willing her to help him. To take him. She rushes after them towards the doorway, heart in her throat. This is her fault, her fault, Oh God, she went too far— 

“Mr. Solo, please, we aren’t finished discussing what you came here for!” 

He slams the door on the way out, leaving Rey stunned, the echo of Kye’s cries ringing in her ears. Her legs give out, shaking, and she collapses on the linoleum floor of her classroom. 

She’d failed Kye. _ She’d failed him_. She’d tried to fight for him, to help him, to— 

Sobbing, she pulls her knees to her chest, giving in to her own pain. 

***

That night, she calls the city's Administration for Children's Services. 

She may be unable to help Kye directly now, her power being limited as a teacher, but she is _ not _going to give up if she suspects abuse or neglect. And there had definitely been warning signs. Enough to alarm her, enough to give her a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. 

The report she files is, thankfully, anonymous. She doesn’t tell Finn she does it. She doesn’t tell Rose. She doesn’t tell anyone. In time, Mr. Solo may suspect it’s her, but he won’t be able to prove it. 

Even if he does...it’s a risk she’s willing to take. She can take care of herself. It’s something she’s learned to do from a very young age. Too young. She had to, when no one else would. 

And now that she’s an adult, she’s going to be the kind of person that her younger self needed. She’s going to be that person. 

For Kye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These next couple chapters will be from Rey's POV. Some will be events that have already happened but will hopefully give more insight into her character. Then through her POV we'll continue on past The Bathroom Incident™ that happened at the end of last chapter. 
> 
> Some terms, if you're unfamiliar:
> 
> IEP: Individualized Education Program. It is individualized depending on the child's special education needs.  
Administration for Children's Services: New York City's agency that handles abuse/neglect investigations, foster care, and juvenile justice 
> 
> Thank you to Keely for this chapter's gorgeous moodboard! 
> 
> [Sunflower's Playlist.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4SyzR4YVHwwCRRaEw9OxAs)
> 
> [](https://twitter.com/alfreylo)


	6. Chapter 6

***

“You okay, Rey? You seem kinda quiet.” 

Finn’s voice pulls her from her thoughts. Rey has been sipping wine out on the fire escape of the apartment that Finn shares with his boyfriend Poe. The view here is a lot better than her own, but she finds that she can’t even enjoy it tonight. She’s felt like this for the past couple weeks, in all honesty. 

Ever since…

Rey closes her eyes briefly, trying not to think of how Mr. Solo had violently barged into the safe space that is her classroom. How she’d felt like a cornered animal as he stalked towards her, spewing profanities. How he’d all but threatened her, his pupils little pinpricks and his undereyes bruised. He’d looked terrifying.

Strung out. 

He’d acted like it, too. 

She’s never had to encounter someone like that since her childhood in foster care. She never thought she would have to, again - or that it would be a parent of one of her students, of all people. Of her _ favorite _student, even though she shouldn’t have a favorite. Kye. 

In spite of all that, she doesn’t regret filing the report. She doesn’t, not for a second. She had to, and she’ll do it a hundred times over, willingly incurring the wrath of Mr. Solo again, if it means she can ensure Kye’s well-being. 

But _ God_, she hasn’t anticipated how her own well-being would suffer in the process. She’s been uneasy, on edge since it happened. She’s tried to shake the feeling every way she can. Throwing herself into her work. Going on long runs in the morning before school. Spending time with her friends, the people that make her happy. Nothing has completely worked, only distracted her. When she’s alone at night, huddled under the covers, she closes her eyes and sees him as he was that day. Monstrous, a vicious gleam to his eye, using his height and build to intimidate, to frighten. 

Even worse are the dreams she starts to have. Of him following her, chasing her. He never physically hurts her, but he taunts her. Demeans her. Screams at her, throws things everywhere. She always wakes up in a cold sweat, a wild rhythm pounding away in her chest. 

Or, after one particularly upsetting dream, in her core. 

Her dream self had fought back against him that time, punching and slapping him in a dark alley he’d chased her down. So he’d taken her right there in the shadows. Pulled down her pants, spread her thighs with one of his knees, and roughly pushed into her.

And God help her, her dream self had _ liked _it. She’d enjoyed it and willingly participated. 

Rey doesn’t know what that says about her, nor does she want to know. She just wants a night, one _ single _ night, where Ben fucking Solo doesn’t live rent free in her mind. 

“Rey?” Finn asks again, more gentle this time. 

She turns to him, forcing a smile that she doesn’t quite feel. “Sorry. Zoned out. I’m fine.” 

He regards her for a moment, frowning. Rey suspects Finn knows she filed the report on Solo; he’d been there when ACS had showed up at their apartment, after all, but he hasn’t said anything to her about what happened. Nothing about Solo, either, and she’s done the same. Because how can she put into words what she’s experienced? Finn is fully involved with the Solos, fully enmeshed with their daily lives as Kye’s nanny. She doesn’t want him to get caught in the crossfire, to have to pick a side. She has a feeling he would, if he knew that Solo threatened her that day. He’s fiercely loyal, sometimes to a fault.

It’s better this way, then. To keep some things from him. So she keeps telling herself. 

“I’m _ fine_,” she stresses, when his frown deepens, even more concerned. “Just tired from work.”

“If you’re tired we don’t have to go, Reybie. This is _ your _ birthday. We can reschedule or stay the night in or—”

“No, no, Finn, it’s — you guys have been planning this for me! I want to. Canto Bight sounds like so much fun. I just need to chug an energy drink and pre-game faster.” She downs the rest of her wine for emphasis. “I’m on the right track already.” 

“I can see that. Another glass, then?”

Rey quirks a brow. “Something stronger? I’m all ready, you’re ready, Poe’s being slow as ever and Rose just texted saying her ETA is still 15 minutes away. We’ve got some time to kill.” 

“And _ this _ is why we are friends.” Finn finally smiles, taking her glass from her, and Rey breathes a sigh of relief. Back to pretending nothing is the matter. She can do that. She _ can._ If not on her birthday, then when?

***

They spend at least thirty minutes in the long line outside of Canto Bight, the overwhelming bass from the nightclub giving Rey a headache. Still, the alcohol in her system from their pre-gaming allows her to be a better sport about the whole thing. She even takes an obligatory selfie with Finn so he can post it on Instagram. 

Things continue to perk up when they finally get past the bouncer. Poe orders everyone in the group a round of drinks and then they take to the neon-flashing dance floor on the main level. The inside of the club is everything Rey expected it to be: loud, crowded and overwhelming, but with a drink in her hand and her friends around her, she’s able to let loose for the first time in what feels like forever. She dances until her feet ache, until she’s dripping sweat, but she’s happy. Happy on her birthday. That hasn’t always been her luck, but it is tonight. 

Eventually, Rose pulls her off the dance floor with the promise to buy her another birthday drink. 

This all goes to shit once they get a look at the crowded bar. There are multiple bartenders trying their best to fulfill everyone’s order, but there’s not a single opening big enough for the two of them.

Rose turns to her, shrugging. “Split up? If you get to order first, I’ll Venmo you for your drink, birthday girl. That’s a promise.”

Rey stamps down her doubt that this is a bad idea. There’s strength in numbers, true, but in a club this enormous one of them is bound to get separated from the group at some point during the night. She’d rather it be at the bar than on the noisy dance floor. Or outside. Apparently Canto Bight has an even bigger outdoor area, and she shudders to think of how hectic it is if the inside is this packed. 

“Just keep your phone on and text me if I can’t find you after?” she asks, almost yelling to be heard over the music. 

“You got it babe!” Rose kisses her cheek in typical drunk Rose fashion and charges to the opposite end of the bar, disappearing behind the patrons who are much taller than her petite self. Rey does the same, trying to squeeze in between a couple who look like they’re just about to settle their tab. It takes much longer than anticipated, though, so she moves further down the bar, trying to find a spot to order. 

Eventually one of the female bartenders takes pity on her and quickly makes her a drink before moving on to a group of girlfriends who look like they're here for a Bachelorette party. 

Rey’s nearly all done, credit card stashed back away in her bra and her overpriced Tequila Sunrise in hand, when she hears an eerily familiar voice in her ear. 

“Miss Niima.” 

“Shit!”

Rey startles as she turns around too quickly, spilling the entire contents of her drink on herself and the person behind her. 

She looks up. Way, _ way _ up, meeting the amber eyes of the man who has haunted her dreams for weeks. 

_ Oh, hell no_. 

“Shit!” she repeats, the reality fully sinking in that she’s in front Mr. Solo. Mr. Solo, who is now drenched in her drink. Mr. Solo, who is looking down at her with a...smile, for once, instead of a scowl? Taken aback, she gets out, flustered, “You scared the shit out of me!” 

“Apologies. I suppose I deserved that. Still, a Tequila Sunrise is much better than pepper spray.” 

Is he...joking with her about what happened that day, when he came at her? Actually joking? 

She watches, stunned into silence, as he brushes a large hand down the front of his suit. His very expensive, obviously designer suit, the white shirt underneath now stained red with her drink, no doubt smelling strongly of alcohol. 

His _ suit_. She’s stained his suit. His suit that probably costs more than her rent, paycheck, and monthly student loan payment. _ Combined. _

“Oh, crap.” Her stomach lurching uncomfortably, she peels the sodden cocktail napkin off the side of her now empty plastic cup, holding it out for him. “I’m sorry. Uh - here’s a napkin?”

As if that would even help. She cringes, already praying for this hellish interaction to be over so she can run away and find her friends. 

But then...then he smiles at her again. Bigger this time. It transforms his entire face, shows off his slightly crooked teeth. He has dimples. _ Dimples_. And he's shaved since the last time she saw him. It's alarming, how handsome he is. Alarming and dangerous and _why is she still staring_?

Rey blinks, wrenching her gaze from his. She can feel the back of her neck begin to heat up, her hair sticking to her overheated skin. Why is she acting like this? Why is _ he? _ This is the same man who forced his way into her place of work, who yelled at her, who made her fear for her safety. He’s acting completely different, now. _ Why? _

“I’ll buy you another drink for ruining yours.” 

Oh, God. Is he...doing what she thinks he’s doing? Flirting with her? She’s horrible at flirting herself and is never able to pick up on the signs. Or maybe he’s just trying to get in her good graces again, to mend the damage that he’s already caused. 

Whatever it is, whatever his motive, she knows it’s not a good idea to accept a drink from him. Even if they had a fantastic track record, even if he was a fully involved and wonderful parent to Kye...he’s still a parent of a child in her class. It’s unprofessional, crossing that boundary. 

_ Kind of like how you had a sex dream about him_, a traitorous part of her mind whispers to her. Rey ignores that voice, shaking her head no.

“No, I’d rather you not. What - what are you doing here?” 

He stares at her for a moment, like he’s taking her in, and she tries not to shy away, knowing he’s a fashion big shot and she’s...well. Dressed in secondhand everything tonight, her shoes a hand-me-down from Rose’s sister and her sequin dress thrifted from a local shop. 

“I do have a personal life, you know,” he finally says, raising one eyebrow. _ Hell_, why is that so attractive? “Looks like you do too.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” she says, rather dumbly in her opinion. She’s normally more confident around people. An ambivert most days but still outgoing enough to talk to strangers. So why does she act so flummoxed around him? She hates it. 

He cocks his head to the side, like he’s considering her answer. “Teacher in a nightclub, though. Bit unusual.”

“It’s not like that. I don’t go clubbing a lot.”

She doesn’t want him to get any ideas. Anything he could hold over her head or use to report her to the school’s administration. She wouldn’t put it past him to retaliate that way. _ I saw Miss Niima getting drunk in a nightclub. Not the most shining example of a Coruscant Academy teacher, don’t you think? _She can even hear it in his tone of voice. 

“Oh? Don’t you?” he asks, still sounding doubtful.

“No, this is my first time here. It’s—” She breaks off, wiping the front of her dress self-consciously. Is she actually doing this? Reasoning with this asshole, after what he did? Having a civil, _ normal _ conversation with the man that she loathes? The man that she thought, up until tonight, loathed her right back? 

“It’s what?”

“It’s my birthday. I’m here with my friends. They talked me into celebrating big this year since it’s my twenty-fifth and...well, they were successful.”

Another disarming smile from him. “Happy birthday! Enjoying it so far?”

“I can’t complain.”

“Then how about that drink? To keep you enjoying yourself.”

_ Jesus_, he’s persistent.

“No thanks, Mr. Solo. I’m good.”

He leans in close and she smells his cologne. It’s spicy, manly. Expensive, just like the rest of him. She’s never been more aware of how cheap she must smell in comparison, with her $13 Bath and Body Works spray. 

“It’s Ben. And I insist. Anything on the menu. In fact, you should ask the bartender to make you the most expensive drink with the most expensive liquor. My treat.”

Rey frowns, biting her lip. He’s really not taking no for an answer, and she _really_ needs to find Rose again. She has to find a way to nip this weird little convo in the bud and go back to her friends, where she belongs. Not here with him. She backs up, reclaiming her personal space. 

“That’s nice of you, but I need to go find my friend Rose, she’s probably ordered already—”

He cuts her off with a wave of his hand. 

“It’s not every day a woman turns twenty-five. Live a little. I’m offering, I can afford it, you will certainly enjoy it. Get a taste of the finer things. Then I can help you find your friend? You’ll need backup. It’s a zoo in here.”

That gives Rey pause. He...has a point. It’s packed in here, and she can’t see Rose anywhere over the sea of people. It might work in her benefit to have some help, even if he’s unwanted help. Then once she finds everyone, she can brush him off. She’s dealt with unwanted advances from men before. This wouldn’t be that much different, would it? 

“How about this, we can go to the VIP area on the second level? You can see everything from up there. The servers bring you drinks, too. That way we can look for your friend and you don’t have to push and shove for a chance to flag down a shitty bartender.”

Everything he’s saying is starting to make more and more sense. And she’d be lying if she said she’s never wondered what it’s like to be in a VIP area. She’s never had that chance, never had the privilege or wealth to experience the ‘finer things’, as he put it. Would it hurt, just this once, to bend the rules a little bit? Hang out with her student’s parent? He’s offering to help, extending his fucked-up version of an olive branch. He even admits to that much, in between playfully joking with her again. 

“How about the drink? Consider it my dysfunctional way of making up for what transpired a few weeks back. I know it won’t solve everything, not even close, but...maybe we can start off on the right foot this time?”

He sounds genuinely sorry. His face is all scrunched up in a (though she’s loath to admit it) adorably apologetic way. He seems more boyish when he does it, more innocent. _ Like Kye. _

Rey looks over her shoulder one last time for Rose, even though she’s already made her mind up. She’s giving Ben Solo a chance. It may end up being a stupid decision that she’ll regret but right now, she’s feeling generous. It feels right to her. He seems willing to let things stay in the past. Maybe she should try it, too. Be the better person and all that. 

“One drink. That’s it,” she clarifies.

His full lips quirk up in a smirk, and she forgets how to breathe for a second as he leads her away from the bar, his hand on the small of her back. “Of course.” 

The crowd around them almost seems to part for him, like people are aware that this man is important and commands attention and respect. This asskissing behavior continues as soon as they step foot in the VIP area upstairs. A beautiful blonde waitress practically throws herself at him, asking for his drink order with a pretty smile and a hairflip. Her special treatment is completely lost on him, though; he doesn’t even spare her a glance, his focus entirely on Rey. 

“Order anything you like, Rey.”

The flush in her neck is back, hearing her name past his lips. It’s said so gently this time, not at all vindictive or hateful like when he’d purposely done it that day in her classroom. This change in his attitude is giving her the mental equivalent of whiplash, so much so that she stumbles over her words like a younger, awkward teenage version of herself.

“I, um...m-maybe just another Tequila Sunrise?” She directs this question at the waitress, who she notices isn’t nearly as bubbly or friendly towards her as she is towards Solo. 

“And two rounds of cake flavored vodka shots. It’s her birthday,” he adds. 

Rey shakes her head. “Oh, no, that’s okay—” 

“Be right back with that!” the waitress chirps, leaving them both to take a seat. He directs her towards a comfy looking leather couch. Rey teeters over in her heels, trying to be as graceful as possible when she sits down. He takes a seat beside her, practically manspreading. Rey quickly presses her thighs together when she feels his leg brush against hers, uncomfortable all over again. 

Why had he ordered multiple shots like that, when she’d explicitly said she wanted one drink? Just one?

“You look nervous.” 

Rey swallows. She is nervous, _ she is_, but she hoped she wasn’t being that glaringly obvious. “I do?”

He nods, leaning towards her. Rey straightens her posture in response. 

“Are you nervous about me?” he asks, sending her another one of those charming smiles.

“I…”

The waitress arrives just in time, sparing Rey the embarrassment of having to answer such a question. She reaches for her Tequila Sunrise at first, thinks better of it, and then takes one of the four shot glasses instead, throwing the contents of it back before she can change her mind. 

Solo laughs, a deep rumbly laugh, as he clinks his shot glass against her empty one. “Good girl. Looks like that isn’t the first time you’ve done that. Happy 25th.” 

Heat unexpectedly flares in her stomach when he calls her that, in that deep tone of voice. Like it’s their little secret. _ Good girl_. 

It should be creepy. It _ is _creepy. 

So why is she sweating again? 

“Thanks,” she murmurs, wiping her clammy palm against her knee.

“You’re welcome. So, my previous question. Are you nervous?”

Oh, hell. 

Rey checks her phone, seeing if Rose or anyone else has sent a message. Nothing so far. She sends off a quick text to their group chat asking where everyone is, then reaches for the second shot glass. 

Fuck it. 

This is already awkward as hell, he paid for all of these drinks, and two shots worth of alcohol isn’t going to do irreparable damage tonight.

***

Thirty minutes later and she couldn’t be more wrong. 

She’s past comfortably tipsy. Not quite in the slurring words territory, but she’s having a hard time focusing on what she really should be doing: finding her friends. Not sitting up here with Solo, answering the questions he’s been asking her. And he’s asked her a _ lot_. So much that it’s no longer fun. It’s bordering on too personal now. Questions like where she grew up. If she has any family. If she lives alone or has any roommates. A boyfriend. Any tattoos or piercings. That last one is the strangest yet.

“Had my nose pierced in college,” she answers distractedly, trying to call Rose for the umpteenth time. It goes straight to her voicemail like last time. _ Shit. _

“Oh right, yeah, your nose piercing. Nice. You’d look gorgeous with that if you got it again. Would you pierce anywhere else?” 

Rey ignores him, smashing the redial button on her phone again and again. 

“It’s my birthday, why isn’t she answering? And my texts aren’t going through, either. The signal is shitty up here!” 

“Have you tried calling your other friends?” he asks, lazily sitting back in his seat, throwing his arm behind her back. His fingers brush her shoulder, featherlight, his skin warm. Too warm. 

Rey wants to slap him, pissed off at how cavalier he’s acting. She _ has _called her other friends. That’s all she’s been doing in between answering his stupid questions! Did he not even notice? Does he not even care?! 

“Finn picked up once but it was useless. The bass is so loud I couldn’t make out what he was saying!”

She chokes back her sudden tears, taking another sip of her drink. Should she just make up the whole bathroom excuse and leave? Try to find her friends by herself? He’d promised to help, but he’s back to being an absolute dickhead instead. 

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, searching in his suit jacket for something. He takes out two yellow pills, holding them in the palm of his hand. It temporarily takes Rey’s mind off of how miserable she feels all of a sudden, being parted from her friends with just him for company. 

“What is that?”

He pops one into his mouth and mumbles something that sounds an awful lot like acid. 

“Acid?” she repeats, horrified. Is he seriously, honest-to-God taking acid? What is _ wrong _ with him? How often does he use drugs? Her mind supplies her with a memory of him in her classroom, raging and erratic. She's certain he was on something then, but she doesn't know what. Is he already on something tonight, too? Is that why he's been acting so different? 

“No, antacid, like Tums.” 

“Oh.” She relaxes just a bit, feeling silly for getting so worked up over nothing. Maybe she should take one, too. She can feel the vodka and tequila settling in her stomach, the acidity of it making her hiccup. “Could I have the other? I get bad heartburn when I have too much liquor.” 

He shakes his head swiftly. “Uh...that’s probably not a good idea.” 

“Why not?”

“Because it’s...mine?”

That’s the last straw. Rey is so frustrated, so mad at him, that this isn’t even about _ wanting _a Tum anymore. She just wants to piss him off, just like he’s pissed her off for being so goddamn unhelpful. Fuck him and his stupid designer Tums that have smileys on them. What is he, five? Is he one of those parents that takes his kid’s candy flavored vitamins because he’s too much of a manchild? 

“Piss off, let me have it!”

“Rey, wait!” 

She snatches the pill from his hand and swallows it before he can stop her. 

“Fuck! FUCK!” he yells, and she feels a perverse sense of pleasure surge through her, to have annoyed him this much. _ Take that, asshole_. 

The pleasure is short lived, though. Bitterness fills her mouth and Rey grimaces, reaching for her drink. This pill is horrible. Even worse than the sickly sweet medicinal taste of a Tum.

He stops her before she can take a sip, his eyes wide with something that looks like fear. 

“Don’t! Don’t drink. You can’t drink anything, do you hear me?”

He practically screams it at her and she doubles down, yelling right back at him. Because who is he to tell her she can’t drink? She’s a grown ass woman! 

“It’s my birthday!”

“You can’t fucking drink with ecstasy! It fucks with your body’s salt levels, goddammit! Do you want to die?!”

It takes her a moment to process what he’s said. Each word slowly sinks in to her alcohol doused brain, taking on a meaning. One word stands out in particular, and it keeps repeating in her head over and over, in his exact tone of voice. 

Ecstasy. Ecstasy. Ecstasy. Ecstasy. 

_ Ecstasy. _

“W-what?” Her voice sounds far away, like she’s in a tunnel and hearing herself from the opposite side. Still she tries again, tries to get her words out. “What? What did you say?”

He just stares at her, eyes wild. And in his silence, her panics rips through her like a bullet. _ Holy shit. _

“Ecstasy?! You gave me ECSTASY?!”

“You took it from me!”

“You said it was Tums!” 

“I FUCKING LIED!” he screams, his face contorted into something horrible.

It truly sinks in, then, just how much she fully fucked up by placing her fragile trust in this man. She is so, so stupid. Always giving people the benefit of the doubt when they don’t deserve it. She thought he was trying to be nice, thought he was trying to start over. But he’s been lying to her this entire time. He hasn’t changed at all. He’s so much worse than what she thought. So, so much worse. Trying to lower her guard, trying to booze her up so he could...what?

She feels sick even thinking about it. 

“You’re a fucking MONSTER!”

She throws her drink into his face, hoping that it burns his eyeballs, that it burns his flesh away to show the snake underneath. She knows it won’t, though. 

He may act like a monster but he’s human. Just like her. 

And that, moreso than the ecstasy newly introduced to her system, is what scares her into running away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final part of Rey's POV will be next chapter and will include the aftermath of what happens at the end of Chapter 4 👀 
> 
> I've admittedly struggled with her side of the story because 1) I find her harder to write than Ben and 2) rehashing scenes like this, while also trying to make them exciting and new and insightful, doesn't come easy for me. That is all to say...I hope you still enjoyed this, and learned something new about Rey in the process. It's important for me that she have agency and a voice in this story, so this is my way of making that happen. 
> 
> Thank you for all the love and being patient! I know you're all waiting for Rey to beat Ben's ass and TRUST, it'll happen 😎


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter is HEAVY. Mentions of drugs and drug usage, a discussion of rape, verbal and physical fights, a child being exposed to one of the physical fights...yeah. A lot. Take care when reading this and step away if it's too much for you ♥️
> 
> This is also unbeta'd so...enjoy the mess!! Happy Mother's Day? 😂😶

***

It all happens so fast. 

She runs through the crowd, trying to find the closest exit, making a brief detour when she spots a random woman’s mace. Pale pink, hanging off her purse by its flimsy keychain. Rey knows it’s flimsy because she has the same exact pepper spray. She hadn’t thought to bring her own tonight, though. She thought she’d be safe, surrounded by friends on her birthday. 

How wrong she’d been. 

“Hey! BITCH!!” the girl screams after her, but Rey doesn’t say sorry for stealing. She doesn’t have time. 

Because in the blink of an eye, he’s found her again. He’s chased after her outside, tracked her down like a damn bloodhound. 

She’s ready for him, though. 

Mace to the eyes first. She uses so much of it that he screams, bloodcurdling and horrible. But that doesn’t fully incapacitate him. He’s still on his feet, stumbling everywhere. Still a threat to her. Suddenly, she knows what she needs to do. 

Whether it’s the adrenaline-laced fear coursing through her veins, the alcohol bolstering her courage, or that college martial arts elective still ingrained in her muscle memory, she can’t say — but she takes him down. _ Hard_. 

Just like the bastard deserves.

***

It all happens so fast.

Not fifteen minutes ago, she’d made him suffer. She’d _ liked _ it, reclaiming her power and making him pay for all he’d done to her. He’d howled like a wounded animal when she’d pepper sprayed him, and flipping him over onto his back had been so damn satisfying. 

The revenge was short lived, though. 

She hadn’t been able to vomit up the ecstasy. He hadn’t been able to help her get rid of it, either. It’s fully in her system now. 

And she feels…

_ Wonderful_, despite everything. Despite how horrible the night was shaping up to be. 

There’s no fear like she expected. There’s no anger, there’s no hatred. The need for revenge, the need to hurt, to punish...all of those have vanished. There’s only the moon above, the music around, and _ him_. 

His knee, more specifically. He’s wearing dress pants. Slacks. Trousers. Whatever it’s called, it looks expensive on him, and it feels expensive too. _Luxurious_. 

It’s softer than anything she’s ever experienced. It’s so soft it’s like butter on her sensitive skin. So soft that she rubs her face against it, over and over. 

“You feel good,” she tells him honestly. Because he does. He feels so good. He should know how good he feels. He should know it every minute of the day, every day of the week. 

His fingers are in her hair now. Stroking through it so softly like she’s a treasure. 

She’s never been treasured before. Is this how it feels? Is this what she’s been missing her entire life? 

“Rey. I’m not a good man,” he says it quietly, ashamedly, practically choking on the words. They hang in the air, and Rey considers them. 

_ Not a good man_. 

She knows they’ve had a rocky, shaky start. A terrible start. She didn’t like him, and he didn’t like her. Maybe they still don’t like each other. Maybe when they’re both sober again she’ll feel different. But right now she feels...weightless. Filled with this intense and infectious happiness, this lightness. Can’t he feel it too? She wishes he would. He sounds sad. Pained. If that’s the case, she can share this light feeling with him. She’s good at sharing. She had to do it a lot growing up. It’s second nature to her now.

“Everyone has their dark sides,” she reminds him gently, trying to be soft, encouraging.

“No, I mean...tonight, even tonight, I’ve done things that I shouldn’t have.”

His hands leave her hair and it’s the worst thing she’s ever experienced, she thinks. The absence of touch when she’s craving it so deeply. She doesn’t want him to go. She wants him to stay right here with her. Where he belongs. 

She grabs his hand between hers, stopping his retreat. There’s a pulse, an _ energy _ that sparks when they touch, and she hears him gasp just as she does. 

His fingertips run down her palm, tracing the line of fate. She went to a psychic once on a whim, not taking it seriously when the palm reader told her that her fate line was deep and strong and therefore it would be a constant presence in her life. Now, she’s starting to believe it. What were the chances she’d run into him tonight? That they’d find each other here, at one of the most crowded clubs this side of Manhattan? That they’d come together and start getting along, in spite of everything that’s happened? It has to be fate. It _ has _ to be. This is fate telling her to not give up on him. Fate has plans for them both. 

“_Fuck_, your hands are so warm and soft. The hands of a nurturer. The hands of an angel. You’re an angel,” he breathes.

Oh. _ Oh_. That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to her. He’s sweet. Who knew he could be this sweet? Certainly not her, even up until just a short bit ago. To think that she thought him an evil monster, someone incapable of compassion or kindness - no! She’d been wrong, and she’s never been happier to have been wrong! The joy in this change of circumstances, in his change of demeanor, is so much it’s overwhelming - so much that she starts to laugh. She can’t keep it inside of her anymore, not when she’s feeling this good. It bubbles up, overflowing, and—

And he’s crying, now. Crap. That can’t happen. Not on her watch. 

“Oh, hey - don’t cry!” She sits up, drawing in close, trying to collect the tears running down his cheeks. If she can stop them from falling, if she can get him laughing, maybe he won’t be so sad. Maybe she can be a reason for his happiness. 

She does it on instinct, the hug. One second she’s drying his tears, and the next he’s wrapped up in her arms. It feels so good. So right. He needs this, she thinks. They both do. 

“You haven’t been given one of these in awhile, have you?”

That only makes him cry harder, his shoulders heaving from the strength of his sobs. Rey hugs him tighter, rocking him slowly. The same sort of hug she gives to Kye each morning at the start of school. A hug that is meant to strengthen and soothe, to _ heal_. Healing, yes. That's what they’re doing.

“I forgive you,” she tells him.

In that moment, she really, truly means it. 

***

It all happens so fast. 

Pressed together as they are on the crowded dance floor, her sequin-clad chest grazes the front of his dress shirt, still stained from where she’d spilled her Tequila Sunrise on it. 

The sensation is unexpected and new and feels _ so good_. It ignites something inside of her. Something that’s been latent, hidden. Something she’d been too scared to put a name to before, despite her many dreams about him. 

Well, she’s not scared to put a name to it now.

It's an attraction. A very, very strong attraction. 

Yes, she’s attracted to him. In all honesty, she’s been attracted to him since the moment he first darkened the door of her classroom. He’s devastatingly handsome, so much that her body aches just looking at him. 

So she gives in to the temptation and kisses him. Lightly at first.

Then, he kisses her back, and it turns into so much more than she anticipated. His large hands are everywhere; the globes of her ass, her chest, her hair. And his _ lips_. Sinful, robbing her of breath, turning her legs so weak that they do eventually buckle under her. That doesn’t deter him in the slightest. 

He picks her up and carries her off, continuing to bruise her mouth with his. He parts from her only briefly, breathing raggedly, her bright pink lipstick smeared along his bottom lip and chin. 

“You’re coming home with me,” he says. 

It’s not a question. It’s a statement of fact. One that she rushes to agree with. 

“Okay.” 

***

It all happens so fast. 

He kisses her even more thoroughly in the back seat of the taxi, one large hand cradling her neck, the other trailing over her breasts and her hips and her thighs. Rey squirms in her seat, needy from his touch, and he nips at her bottom lip. As if to say: _ we’re just getting started - there’s so much more to come_. 

She’ll never recover from this, she thinks distantly. 

From kissing him. She’s never been kissed like this. It’s soul-consuming, skin branding, molecular changing. But it doesn’t stop there.

After a brief tour of his penthouse apartment - yes, a _ penthouse _ apartment, complete with marbled tiled floors and vaulted ceilings and a sweeping view of the city - he continues to make her breathless with desire. He presses her against the floor-to-ceiling window in his master bedroom, mouthing at her neck. Stars erupt in her vision whenever she closes her eyes, and it’s singlehandedly the most erotic, thrilling experience of her life. 

Being so far up, the city just specks of light below her, caged in by strong arms and a broad chest...it’s hard _ not _ to get swept away. He’s telling her things she never thought he would. That he’s lonely, that he doesn’t cope with it in the right ways. His honesty and vulnerability, how _ earnest _he sounds - all of it chips away at her dwindling resolve until there’s absolutely nothing left. 

She’s all too ready when he takes her to his bed, placing her on top of the covers like she’s precious. Sacred. 

It’s nothing short of worshipful, the way he takes off her heels and spreads her legs, his mouth pressing wet, heated kisses from her ankles up to her inner thighs. Her clothes are still on, as are his, but she might as well be naked. She feels so open, so _ exposed_. Not in a bad way, far from it, but this is so...so much. So much, all at once. So much that she’s never done.

“I don’t - I don’t really have experience with this,” she admits. 

_ This _ being sex, or oral, or anything beyond drunken kisses. She’s a late bloomer, always has been, but it’s not that she’s avoided intimacy with anyone. She’s just never found that spark. That overwhelming, blood-on-fire, fireworks feeling when you really, _ truly _want someone. 

Until now. 

“I’ve never…” she tries again, but words fail her when his tongue darts out, licking the innermost part of her thigh. 

Then he does it again, to the opposite one. 

He teases her several more times, his hot mouth getting closer and closer to her center, but nothing prepares her for when she finally feels his insistent, talented tongue lick along her slit. 

Or when his lips close around her clit, sucking it into his mouth through the thin fabric of her panties. 

“Oh _ God.” _

She can’t say anything else aside from that. Anything else wouldn’t do what he’s doing to her justice. Repeating that is her only option, over and over. Her fingers find his soft hair and she holds onto him, desperate for purchase. 

“You smell _ incredible_. Fucking incredible.” His voice, low and hoarse against her skin, makes her pulse spike and her core throb. If this is what she’s been missing, if this is what he’s truly like behind all the anger and aggression and attitude, then— 

“So fucking wet for me. You have a gorgeous little cunt. _ Fuck_, I need to see you bare.”

He pulls her panties to the side, latching onto her again, and Rey is lost. 

Lost to him, lost to this. Lost to everything he’s doing to her, and he does a _ lot_. He nearly makes her come with his mouth and fingers, only to change his mind at the last second, shoving his pants down his legs. She only catches a glimpse of his large cock, thick and leaking a string of precum, before he presses it against her. 

He never penetrates her. It’s exquisite agony, how she clenches around nothing, feeling that emptiness inside of her, wishing it was him instead.

“You like my cock rubbing against your pretty cunt, Rey? How’s that feel, angel? Can you come like this? Just like this?”

His words sound rushed and feverish, as feverish as she feels. Rey is too far gone to answer back. Instead she hooks her legs around his waist, bucking up to meet each one of his thrusts. The wet sounds of skin-meeting-skin and their labored breaths echo around them, spurring them onward. 

That tense, coiled feeling in her belly returns with a renewed strength, far stronger than when he’d only used his mouth and fingers on her. It only takes a few more wet slides of his cock against her aching clit and then she’s shattering. Falling apart, crying out his name, riding wave after wave of pleasure. 

He follows close behind her. She expects him to be as vocal as her, to shout or curse as he loses himself, but that isn’t the case. No. He simply _ looks _ at her, his dark, wild eyes roving over every inch of her face. 

Like he’s looking for an answer and he’s found it in her. 

“_Rey_.”

***

It all happens so fast.

She startles awake in the dark, a headache ripping through her with such severity that she feels nauseous. 

Prying herself out of his arms proves difficult, especially given how strong he is, but she makes it to the attached bathroom before the vomiting hits.

She stands in front in the large mirror afterward, caught off guard by the girl who stares back at her. 

She doesn’t look like herself. 

Hair a mess, makeup smeared all over, her dress rumpled and twisted about her hips with stains on it. White stains. What she’d done with him is written so plainly to see on every part of her body. 

He’s marked her. 

She isn’t embarrassed, though. Even in the early morning, with her wits fully returned to her, she doesn’t regret what happened. She wanted it. She wanted him. She still does. 

Will it happen again? It’s hard to say. He’s the parent of her student. They’ve crossed that ethical line together. Broken it. They both made a choice last night. Whether it was a good one or a bad one, she isn’t sure just yet. But it _ feels _like a good one. It feels like they’ve turned a page. She feels optimistic, in spite of the headache and nausea and general ickiness. In spite of their tumultuous history. Hopeful, even. 

Maybe this is the start of the rest of their lives together. Maybe she misunderstood him entirely on their first meeting. One giant misunderstanding. Maybe he’s not as complicated or problematic or assholish as she thought. Maybe he really is just a single father, struggling to be an active parent but with ultimately good intentions. Maybe...

Rey opens the medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink, hoping he has pepto to settle her stomach or better yet, ibuprofen for her pounding headache.

Instead she encounters orange pill bottles.

Rows and rows and rows of them. 

Rey takes one out, carefully reading the prescription label.

Xanax. 

She takes out another. 

Klonopin. 

Then another. 

And another. 

The names of the medications all start blurring together after that.

Valium.

Ativan. 

Halcion. 

OxyContin.

Hydrocodone.

Phenobarbital.

Ambien.

Lunesta.

Ritalin. 

Adderall. 

What’s even more harrowing are the baggies of substances stashed behind the bottles. 

Some she can guess what they are, others she can’t. With each one she takes out, placing on the counter with shaking hands, Rey can feel her hope from earlier slipping further away, cold dread replacing it. 

Deep down she knew. 

She _ knew _ he had a problem. The erratic behavior. The aggression. The dark, bruised circles under his eyes. Hell, his ready access to a party drug like ecstasy should’ve been the biggest warning sign of all. But she’d overlooked everything in her altered state of mind. 

Because he’d seemed so _ different _ as the night progressed. Like a different person. A different Ben Solo. Softer, kinder, more vulnerable. True, they’d both been high off their asses at the time, but she remembers how he made her feel. The words he told her, the way he _ looked _ at her. Pure magic. The strongest, most visceral connection she’s felt to anyone. It had felt like something out of a dream. 

That’s all gone now. 

The brief illusion that they could really _ be _something, that he could be the one for her...it’s been shattered by an ugly truth.

He’s an addict. 

A full-blown addict with a medicine cabinet full of benzodiazepines, barbiturates, stimulants, and God knows what else. 

Seeing all of it laid out like this, seeing the addiction quantified in such a way—

It’s terrifying. 

Skin crawling. Devastating. 

There’s enough to kill someone here. Enough to kill _ him_. 

Enough to overdose so easily, and he’d already been so high...

Heart in her throat, Rey returns to the bedroom. She watches him carefully, trying to pick up on his breathing pattern as he sleeps. 

He seems okay. He seems alright. If the only thing he took last night was ecstasy and alcohol, he won’t be in any worse shape than she is. 

But what if he _ was _on something else? What if he’d mixed something? There’s no way to tell. 

Unless…

Rey’s eyes dart to his jacket, messily discarded at the end of the bed. 

She approaches it slowly, fearing what’s inside, and she almost chickens out altogether - but her concern for him ultimately trumps any second thoughts she has. If she has to call an ambulance for him, the paramedics will want to know as much information as she can give them. It’s in his best interest for her to do this. Just to be safe. 

Feeling around in the left pocket, she encounters one small bag filled with powder. Cocaine, if she had to guess. There are a few stray pills, too, but nothing more than that. 

And in the other pocket—

Rey’s hand closes around a hard object.

A phone. His phone?

She pulls it out and flips it onto its back, studying the phone’s case.

A pattern of roses, one she knows all too well, decorates its surface. 

Rose’s phone. 

He has Rose’s phone. 

Rey blinks away her lingering grogginess, trying to understand.

But why would he—? 

She trips in her haste to grab her own phone beside the window where she'd left it, powered off to conserve the charge. She remembers doing so during the taxi ride over here. She shouldn’t have. She should’ve checked her messages. If she had, she would’ve found what she has now: 

5 unread texts in her inbox, each one more anxious than the next. 

The least recent, sent from Finn’s number:

> **Rey, where are you? This is Rose. I’m using Finn’s phone bc some fucker ran off with mine! Text back please! **

After that, from Finn himself: 

> **What the fuck, Rey? Where did you go?? Are you with someone??? Be safe**

Then another one from Rose: 

> **Rose again! I’ve been TELLING you to enable Find My Friends on your phone and you kept shrugging it off BUT THIS. IS. WHY. YOU. NEED. IT!!!!!**

The next from Poe: 

> **Tell us where u are? This isn’t like u and we’re worried**

And finally, the most recent from Rose, sent just an hour ago:

> **Rose (AGAIN!) Please just text us when you get these??? I want to know you got home safe. Doesn’t even matter if it’s 4am TEXT BACK. PLEASE!!!**

When the realization fully sinks in, Rey feels numb. 

This is worse than the drugs. 

Infinitely worse. 

Someway, somehow...he stole Rose’s phone. 

He _ stole her phone. _

Not only that. 

He’d lured Rey away with an offer of drinks, effectively limiting her contact with her friends from the start. Her initial gut instinct had been right. Without the alcohol or the ecstasy inhibiting her judgement, she would’ve continued to see right through his lies.

His friendliness had been an act_. _

It had all been an act. 

He’d planned it all out. 

He’d laid a trap, and she’d fallen right into it. 

He’d even told her as much. His words, the ones she'd disregarded as untrue at the time, come back to haunt her now:

_I’m not a good man. _

Rey barely makes it to the bathroom this time. She throws up in the sink, surrounded by all of the drugs that he uses. 

All of the drugs that he uses in a home he shares with Kye. 

Oh, God. _ Kye_. 

He isn’t here, she knows that much. Finn had told her when they were getting ready for Canto Bight. On the days that Finn has off work, Kye usually goes to visit his grandparents. And thank God for that. Thank _God. _He can’t be unsupervised here. It’s unsafe. It’s dangerous. He’s five-years-old and his father is a drug addict. A lying, manipulative drug addict. 

Rey really breaks down at that. She slumps to the floor, pulling her knees up to her chest, and cries.

It isn’t right. At all. How could she have gone along with it last night? How could she have let it get this far?

How could she? 

How could _ he? _

Shame engulfs her the longer she sits there on the floor, her underwear still damp and sticking to her skin. 

From where they’d—

Rey stifles another sob, willing herself not to picture that again. She’ll make herself sick for the third time if she does. 

“Rey?”

She stifles her crying when she hears his voice, hoping he’ll go back to bed and she can sneak out. 

No such luck. He’s up. He’s awake. 

She hears clothes rustling and then a groan. Heavy footsteps across the floor. 

And then — then he finds her, stumbling into the bathroom, his clothing only halfway on, his hair a mess. 

His eyes shift to her, then to the bottles and baggies, then back to her. When she holds up Rose’s phone, she can see the understanding slowly dawn on his face. 

“How dare you?”

The piercing silence that comes after her question is proof enough that he knows. He _ knows _what he’s done. He tried to earn her trust — and succeeded. And he betrayed that trust from the moment he first took her friend’s phone. 

She knows she’s not faultless. She made a (very stupid and impaired) choice to leave with him last night. She _ knows that_. She’s too damn trusting. Too naive. Always willing to give people a chance. A second chance. Even a third. The ecstasy had only heightened that natural instinct. 

But after what he’s done - how incredibly _ violated _and taken advantage of she now feels in the wake of everything that happened—

She’s done. She’s done with him. She doesn’t want anything to do with him. 

He can rot in hell, pumped full of all the toxic drugs he owns.

“Rey...I—”

“Don’t you _ dare_. Don’t you dare fucking call me that. You _ motherfucker_,” she spits. 

He blinks, like he’s having trouble processing the vicious words coming out of her. “I — Let me explain—”

“No!” She stands on unsteady legs, pulling on the edge of her dress. His eyes track the movement and he comes closer, to touch her, but she slaps his hands away. Those hands, the same ones that brought her to the height of pleasure last night, are now repulsive to her. He repulses her. 

“Don’t fucking touch me.” 

“Calm down, _ fuck_, Rey, please, just—”

He keeps talking, but his words fade away as the sparks of fury inside of her fan into a flame. 

Calm down?

He’s telling her to _ calm down_? 

No. _ Fuck him. _ He doesn’t get to tell her to calm down! The fact that he’s even trying to - it’s fucked. It’s twisted. And - and she hates him. She _ hates _ him. She hates him so much she wants him to hurt, to feel even a modicum of the devastating shame and sadness that she does...but she doesn’t think he’s even capable of that. 

He’s sick and unfeeling and cold. That knowledge makes it so much easier for her to lash out. And she does. 

She takes the closest thing within reach, which just happens to be one of the ugly orange bottles on the counter, and hurls it straight at his face as hard as she can. 

It hits him in the right eye with an almost comical _ thwack _and then he’s doubled over in pain. 

“Ow, fuck—!”

“Go fuck yourself,” she seethes, pushing past him out of the bathroom. 

She doesn’t hear when he calls after her. Hell, she can hardly even see. She’s never seen red before. Not like this. She’s so upset she’s shaking. The tears keep coming and coming, and her throat keeps closing up as she picks up her heels. He’d taken them off last night so _ reverently_, kissing up her legs like she was some sort of goddess, and she’d believed it. In that moment, she had. 

But he’s a fucking sociopath. A sociopath, a liar, a _ monster. _Someone who’s clearly used to taking women home with him to fuck, to use and discard when he’s finished with them like old toys. Did all the ones who came before her feel this horrible, this disgusting? 

She’ll never know. She doesn’t want to. Her heart hurts too much. She can only hope that they got the hell out before Ben fucking Solo could do anything else to them. Just like she’s about to do. 

She’s halfway out the bedroom door, heels in one hand and her and Rose’s phones clutched in the other, when she feels his arms encircle her waist, lifting her off her feet. 

Last night when he’d done the same thing, it had been exhilarating. 

Now, it’s nothing short of terrifying. 

“LET GO OF ME!”

“Rey, you’re not thinking straight, just—”

“Stop! _ STOP_!” 

She tries everything she can to break out of his grasp. She kicks, she punches, she wallops him with her shoes, she even tries to bite. He still manages to carry her back to his bed, pinning her down to the mattress with his weight. She tries to roll out from under him, to twist out of his grasp, but he holds on tight, cursing as he does. 

“Stop fighting, fucking _ stop_, I’m not going to hurt you, I’m not going to do anything to you, I promise, I just want you to _ LISTEN TO ME— _” 

She screams. Louder than she has in her entire life, so much that her throat burns, that spit flies up to land on his face. 

That finally seems to get through to him. He lets go of her, slowly, but it’s more than enough leeway for her to gain the upper hand. 

Using every last bit of strength, every last bit of adrenaline she can summon, she flips their positions. She’s in control, now, and she’s not going to waste it. 

With another scream, she reaches for his throat, pressing down hard until he’s red in the face and her own fingers hurt. 

“I FUCKING _ HATE _ YOU!!” 

He chokes, makes a strangled sound, but still she doesn’t let up. She squeezes even tighter, nails digging into his skin, her arms shaking from the effort. 

“People aren’t _ THINGS _ for you to play with or destroy, you bastard! Stop messing with other people’s lives because yours is so FUCKING! MISERABLE!” 

She emphasizes the last two words with a slap to his left cheek, then his right. Pain erupts in her own hand from hitting so hard but she doesn’t register that. No. The only thing she’s focused on is his wide-eyed stare as he looks up at her, clutching his throat, his breathing ragged as he tries to regain his stolen breath. 

It’s the first time she’s seen him look truly scared. Frightened.

Of her. 

_ Good_. 

She shoves away from him, disgusted. He doesn’t move to follow her this time. He stays right where he is, immobile, like he’s bound to the mattress by some invisible rope. 

“The next time you put your hands on me, you’re as good as dead. Don’t think that I won’t do it. Don’t think I won’t expose you for the piece of shit you are just because I love Kye.” She wipes at her eyes, angrily, willing away the tears that keep coming. “You don’t deserve him. You don’t deserve to be a father! You don’t deserve _ anything. _ You’re a waste of fucking space and I hope you never forget it. I hope you die with the knowledge that you’re a sad, pathetic excuse of a human being who has to rely on liquor and drugs for women to sleep with you. _ Prick_.”

She doesn’t wait around for whatever else he has to say. She slams the bedroom door shut behind her, the finality of it helping to bolster her courage. She can’t break down again, not here. Not like this. She has to wait until she’s home. Not here with _ him _in this cursed place she doesn’t recognize, far removed from the outside world and everything that gives her own life meaning, and—

_ Click. _

The unmistakable sound of a key entering a lock. 

Then, the front door to the apartment swings open. 

And in walks— 

No. 

God no.

No no no NO! 

“Oh! Hello?” a middle-aged woman whispers, uncertainly. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be up at this hour.”

The grey-haired man behind her, towering over her smaller frame, adjusts a sleeping Kye in his arms. 

Rey can only stand there, horrified, because—

These are Ben’s parents. 

Kye’s _ grandparents_. 

There’s no doubt about it. She can see Ben’s features in both of them. In the woman’s dark eyes and regal bearing. In the man’s height, his full lips and jaw. 

And she’s meeting his parents in a cum-stained dress, her face a mess of snot and tears, her dignity ripped to shreds. 

“Are you - ahem - a friend of Ben’s?” the woman asks, drawing closer to her. She seems familiar. Almost like Rey has seen her before. Is she famous? A public figure? Something? Rey doesn’t know. 

“Are you okay, honey?” the woman coaxes, when Rey doesn’t answer. 

Her kindness, how _ motherly _the question feels, is too much. Too much. 

“I—” Rey chokes, a new set of tears running down her cheeks. “I’m - I’m sorry—” 

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Here, you’re shaking, let me—” 

The woman unwraps the large, chic scarf from her neck and drapes it over Rey, rubbing at her shoulders. 

“What’s your name?”

“Rey.”

“Rey. Do you need to see someone?”

The question confuses her. “I - I don’t know—”

“A doctor? Or…” The woman sighs, like it pains her to say it. “The police? Do you need us to call them?” 

“_Jesus,” _the grey-haired man mutters, but the woman shushes him with a sharp wave of her hand.

“Shut up, Han. You’ll wake the baby. Do you have your phone?”

The man - _ Han - _grunts in the affirmative, adjusting Kye in his arms again as he reaches into his pockets.

In the heavy silence that follows, Rey understands. 

They think she’s been raped. And they’re ready - _ prepared _\- to turn their own son in, if it means they can help her. 

Holy shit. 

“No, I’m - I’m not — nothing happened—” she tries to explain, but fails. Something _ did _happen. A lot happened. But Ben didn’t rape her. How can she explain that, though? She can barely string two words together in her state. She can barely even think. 

Behind her, Rey hears the bedroom door open and close again. 

Fuck. _ Fuck_. She needs to get out of here. _ NOW_! 

“What the fuck are you two doing here?” Ben bites out, his voice destroyed.

She'd done that to him.

She'd choked him.

She'd—

Rey stiffens. She can’t move her legs to run. She can’t do anything. She can hardly breathe. What is _ wrong _with her? Is it delayed shock?

“Good to see you too, asshole,” his father greets him - if one could even call it a greeting. The ‘asshole’ doesn’t sound like a term of endearment in the slightest. 

“What the _ fuck _are you two doing here?” Ben repeats, louder.

Loud enough to wake Kye. 

Rey watches, petrified, as the little boy lifts his head from Han’s shoulder, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 

The lighting in the penthouse is dim, the sun outside not quite risen, but Kye recognizes her instantly. He wiggles excitedly in Han’s arms until his grandfather sets him down, and then he’s running across the room, wrapping his arms around Rey’s legs in a hug. 

“Lando is in the hospital,” Ben’s mother explains. “It’s serious and we need to go see him, but we didn’t want to leave for New Jersey with Kye, not without telling you, so….”

“So you decided to swing by at five fucking a.m. to drop him off, with no warning?”

“We tried calling you but it went straight to voicemail and Ben, _ please _ watch your language, not around the baby—”

“He’s not a fucking _baby, _Leia, he’s five and you don’t get to fucking tell me how to act in my own goddamn house—”

The words fade away again. She can only focus on Kye, on what he is trying to sign to her amidst the raised voices around them.

** _ Happy to see you. _ **

** _ You’re my friend. _ **

** _ How are you?_ **

** _I love you._ **

The last one finally gets through to her. She can move again. She’s able to sink down to her knees to be at his level and sign back to him, holding back her tears as much as she’s able. 

“I love you too, sweet boy. I’ll see you at school on Monday, but I can’t stay here.”

“Wait, wait — school? Did you say school?”

There’s a hand on her shoulder. Rey looks up, meeting the kind but troubled eyes of Ben’s father. 

She swallows back another round of nausea, nodding. “Yes. I’m...I’m Kye’s teacher.”

The man huffs out a sharp, humorless laugh, then rounds on Ben again.

“Jesus, Ben, his _ teacher_? Are you insane? What the _ hell _ is the matter with you? What did you do to her?”

”Mind your fucking business, Han,” Ben spits, angry and horrible, but his tone changes in an instant once he addresses her. “Rey, please, can we talk, _ please_, I only want to talk—” He gets out, his words hurried and frantic, trying to skirt around his father to get to her.

Han stands in his way, even going so far as to push at Ben’s shoulders to stop him.

“No, _ no_, you let her leave. You let her go. Keep her out of this. I don’t know what you did to get her back here, but you need to leave the poor girl alone. You should be ashamed of yourse—”

Han’s words cut off abruptly as Ben punches him in the jaw, and chaos immediately erupts around them.

Kye crying, covering his face with his hands.

Leia screaming, trying to tear Han and Ben off of each other.

And Rey...Rey acts on instinct, picking Kye up and taking him off, away from the fighting. 

“Where’s your room, sweetheart? Show me your room?”

Kye points to another door right across the hall from Ben’s. Rey takes him inside and tucks him into his too-large bed, trying to keep up a steady conversation to distract him. 

“This week we’re going to be talking about plants in school, Kye. All kinds of plants. And you’ll even get to grow your own! Won’t that be fun? You’ll have your own flower to take home and place on your windowsill over there…”

There’s nothing in here to drown out the fighting she can still hear outside. She has to think quickly, pulling up a playlist of children’s songs on her phone. The battery is on 4% but it’s the best she can do. 

“Keep letting this play until my phone shuts off, okay?” She asks, turning up the volume as high as it can go. “You can give it back to me on Monday. I’ll see you then, Kye. I promise you.” 

Kye nods, still crying. Rey hugs him fiercely, kissing the top of his head. That only makes him cry more.

It’s the worst thing she’s ever had to do, leaving him here. Leaving him in this mess. But she can’t do much else. He’s not her child. This isn’t her family. She can only be responsible for herself as everything spirals out of control around her.

So she tells Kye goodbye as she shuts his door, choking back her own tears. She runs past the screaming match in the kitchen, ignoring Ben’s shouts for her, and she doesn’t stop running until she’s in the elevator. She thinks she hears commotion in the hall, so she hits the first floor button ten times in a row, willing the doors to close faster.

When she’s finally outside the building, alone on the early morning streets of Manhattan, far away from the fighting fifty floors above her, Rey’s able to fully _ breathe _ again, to think. 

There’s still one more thing she can do, she realizes.

Turning on Rose’s phone, Rey dials 911. 

Not for herself - for Kye. 

Always for Kye. 

She isn’t sure if a welfare check will help or only make things worse, but she has to try. 

She gives Ben’s address, her voice shaking as she does. Once the dispatcher assures her there will be someone there soon, she hangs up and walks to the closest subway station - barefoot, to her disgust. She left her shoes at the penthouse but she is _ not _going back. There’s no way in hell. 

Rey stands there on the train platform, reading the arrival times but not really absorbing the words. She tries to collect herself, to fully process everything, but she can’t. She can’t. 

Not yet. 

Because it all happened so fast.


End file.
